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Turkish Taxes

Posted: July 28th, 2018, 5:22 pm
by youfoolishboy
I am looking at a job offer to go and work in Turkey and am trying to get a handle on what taxes I will pay and how the UK will treat me on return.
Details areas follows.
I would start September so would not be tax resident for 17-18 Turkish tax year however I would next year.
I will be paid by an agent, contract position, a fixed rate after local taxes into an Turkish bank account in Lira.
From a rough calculation based on a higher tax rate of 35% I would pay more Turkish tax than UK tax
I would be given accommodation at no cost, initially in a hotel then serviced apartment

So what I need to know is do I have to fill in a tax return in Turkey, my research suggest no but there is a possible requirement for one 15 days before departure which makes no sense and I have no idea how to do that should I have to.
Would I have to pay any taxes on my Stocks and Share ISA, cash ISA and SIPP next year
Would I have to pay a property tax on my UK home next year
Are there any other deductions from my income apart from income tax, it Turkish NI etc.
Where would the tax for the accommodation be deducted.
Any answers/pointers would be good. I found the KPMG website the best info source so far.
Cheers

Re: Turkish Taxes

Posted: September 7th, 2018, 10:40 pm
by DiamondEcho
Did you make any head-way on this, I just noticed the topic today? Coincidentally I see yr OP is dated the same as our departure date after 3 years from that... err, rather challenging country.
p.s. Anyway, I could have some tips. Firstly that the TRL is going down the pan and fast, it dropped something shocking like £1 = 3.6 > 8.5 during our time there. Not helpful if you're on fixed TRL pay and were wishing to bank some savings and bring it home in hard currency.

Re: Turkish Taxes

Posted: September 9th, 2018, 12:43 pm
by youfoolishboy
The job has gone on the back burner a bit. The company has suddenly lowered the rate they were offering so not getting a warm feeling about working for them. The pay would it seem be either in $ or £ so the exchange rate risk is lessened but I also feel that is the risk as if the company have priced the job in TRL then me getting paid in £ or $ is going to make it unable to make a profit.

Re: Turkish Taxes

Posted: September 9th, 2018, 6:38 pm
by DiamondEcho
youfoolishboy wrote:if the company have priced the job in TRL then me getting paid in £ or $ is going to make it unable to make a profit.


In my experience many services are priced is hard-currency, but when payment is due they can be willing to accept payment in TRL per the FX rate at that time. This hedges out quite a lot of the FX risk for them.
For example: I had an IT guy in to fix my PC, and he took payment this way. I sent my hi-fi loud-speakers away to have the speaker cones repaired, and ditto how I paid. The former was a small IT company [the owner and a colleague called at my home to do the work]. The latter I dropped the speakers off at the hi-fi shop which was a single branch operation.
If small businesses are doing it, I'm sure bigger businesses are billing their customers in a parallel way. I.e any contract you agreed should be formed using a hard currency sum, if paid in TRL the rate should be set from a known and agreed source. My wife's employer used Agoda [IIRC], I used XE.com when wanting to check an FX rate being quoted to me.

p.s. Hotels often bill in the same way too, ie quote in US$/Euro, but accept other currencies.

Re: Turkish Taxes

Posted: September 12th, 2018, 6:33 pm
by youfoolishboy
I found out today the money will be paid in TRL at the exchange rate of the day so I always get the same amount in £s. The taxes are not paid by me so I dont have to deduct them from my salary. So say my contract was to be £1000 a month, every month on a fixed date £1000 will be converted into TRL and put in my bank account in Turkey. The trick then is to move the money to a foreign currency account at the same bank. There will be transaction charges but reasonably simple in the end. Accommodation is provided so dont really need much in the way of TRL only for food and day to day spend.

Re: Turkish Taxes

Posted: September 13th, 2018, 2:12 am
by DiamondEcho
We had a/c's with Garanti Bank, and ran local TRL and GBP accounts in parallel with them. Money in came in £ into the £ a/c and got converted into the TRL a/c. 'This is normal' out there. They were fine for us 'undemanding customers'.

Re: Turkish Taxes

Posted: September 18th, 2018, 10:15 am
by gryffron
Can't you use a currency broker website (caxtonxf, hifx etc) to do the transfer? For regular transfers like this they are usually cheaper fees and better rates than banks.

Gryff

Re: Turkish Taxes

Posted: September 18th, 2018, 3:36 pm
by DiamondEcho
ISTR the FX rate that Garanti gave was pretty good, so there was little incentive to try and find a cheaper service. Also the cost/hassle of opening new UK financial a/c's from there is almost insurmountable, involving embassy certified copies of passports and other dox. Unsurprisingly given the security issue getting access to the embassy was tricky and time-consuming. Oh and if either website says anything about spread-betting, then the TKish govt has long form on banning them.