The Scope of the Legality Principle of Taxation in the Light of Turkish Constitutional Court’s Judgments

Abstract

In order to determine the scope of the legality principle of taxation which is regulated in Turkish Constitution, the criteria adopted by Turkish Constitutional Court (“TCC”) are important. The aim of this study is to evaluate these criteria and observe the compliance of Turkish tax legislation with them. As a result of this examination, it is determined that the criteria were not fully settled and that the current tax legislation do not comply with them sufficiently. However, taxpayers should be able to foresee which rules are regulated by laws and which are regulated by other formal sources of tax law. In its recent judgments, the Court softened its strict supervision of formal dimension of the principle, which is “no tax without law”. It can be considered that the case-law of European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) is effective on this approach. According to the case-law of ECtHR, the concept of “lawfulness” refers to the quality of the law in question.However, Article 73 of Turkish Constitution is the special provision in respect of tax law. Thus, the tax rules which are basically foreseeable by taxpayers are the rules which are regulated in the laws in both formal and material meanings.