SOSYAL MEDYA İÇERİK ÜRETİCİLERİ VE MOBİL UYGULAMA GELİŞTİRİCİLERİNE VERGİ MUAFİYETİ

TAX EXEMPTION FOR SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATORS AND MOBILE APP DEVELOPERS

According to the definition in the law, this exemption covers the earnings of social content creators who share content such as text, images, audio, and video on social network providers (YouTube, Twitch, etc.) on the internet and mobile device developers who earn up to 880,000 TL (2022) from electronic application sharing and sales platforms for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Those who fall under this category are required to open a special account at a bank and keep all their income related to these activities in this account. If the income exceeds the amount specified in the law, banks are obliged to declare and pay income tax at a rate of 15% as of the transfer date.

What Should Be Done to Benefit from Tax Exemption?

To benefit from tax exemption, you must first apply to the registered tax office and obtain an "Exemption Certificate". The issue you need to be careful about when obtaining this document is your tax liability status. In other words, the procedures to be followed are divided into two categories depending on whether or not you have a sole proprietorship.

Non-Taxpayer (Sole Proprietorship) Individuals

Individuals who have not had any other commercial income before, that is, those who do not have income tax liability, can obtain an Exemption Certificate after finding out that they have earned income from creating content on social media or developing mobile applications. The steps they need to take can be explained as follows:

• Apply to the tax office to which they are affiliated in the place where they reside to open a taxpayer account and then obtain the "Exemption Certificate".
• Open an account in a bank with the "Exemption Certificate" and ensure that all revenue related to these activities is collected through this account.

Taxpayers (Sole Proprietorship) Individuals

Before applying for the exemption, the eligibility of individuals (who already have a sole proprietorship) who have commercial income, that is, who have income tax liability, will be checked. If the tax office determines that their registered activities are eligible for tax exemption, documents will be issued. The steps that these taxpayers need to take can be explained as follows:

• Apply to the tax office to which they are affiliated with a petition for activities covered by the exemption.
• Open an account with the Exemption Certificate in a bank and ensure that all revenue related to these activities is collected through this account.
• Those who do not have activities covered by the exemption cannot obtain the Exemption Certificate. However, if they fall within the scope in the future, they can obtain the Exemption Certificate by making an additional declaration to the tax office to which they are affiliated and then open a bank account.

In conclusion, being a taxpayer does not prevent you from benefiting from the exemption. Therefore, you can continue with your existing sole proprietorship for activities outside the scope, such as e-commerce, and continue to issue invoices for income obtained from these sources.

Tax Relief for YouTubers

With the new economic package that provides tax relief for content creators, content creators who share content such as audio, video, text, and mobile application developers on social media platforms will not have to pay income tax on their earnings. With this regulation, they will be exempt from obligations such as tax return submission. These individuals will only be subject to a 15% tax deduction by banks in Turkey on their revenue. Those who wish to benefit from the exemption must open an account at a bank in Turkey and collect all their earnings related to their activities through this account.

To illustrate with an example:
Assume that there is a sole proprietorship that earns 300,000 TL from content creation on social media and 600,000 TL from e-commerce activities in 2022 and collects all the revenue related to the exempted income of 300,000 TL through a special bank account.

Since the income tax withheld by the bank at a rate of 15% for the collections made during the year is paid by the bank to the tax office in advance and the income of 300,000 TL related to the exemption does not exceed the amount specified in the law for the year 2022, this income is not included in the annual income tax return.

However, the income tax calculated in the income tax return will be paid for the 600,000 TL income earned from e-commerce activities.

Benefit from Tax Exemptions with Ifasturk

We are with you throughout all your processes to obtain a tax exemption certificate and perform operations such as income-expense reporting for artisan tax exemption certificate. Social media content creators and mobile device application developers can benefit from tax exemption with Ifasturk for the income they receive from their activities. You can always contact us to learn about the service content and get detailed information.