The Question of Interaction between Tax and Criminal Proceedings in Turkiye in Terms of ECtHR Jurisprudence
Barış BahçeciThis study deals with the question of harmonization between tax and criminal proceedings in Turkish law resulting from the condition of “sufficiently close in substance and in time” as applied within the scope of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 (P7-4) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In this context, the study first examines the developmental line of jurisprudence regarding the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and then examines how the elements of “substance” and “time” have been interpreted, starting with the Glantz and Nykänen judgments against Finland in 2014 and ending with the Kristjansson judgment against Iceland in 2021. Afterward, the study finds aspects of the case-law as created by the ECtHR to be incompatible with Turkish law. Because no legal regulation exists in Turkish law that provides a connection between “substance” and “time,” the final section proposes a solution to the identified problems. In this context, a systematic distinction has been made between crimes that do and do not require knowledge of tax techniques. The study recommends with regard to the first type of crime that an investigation into deliberateness be carried out by the tax court with its expert knowledge of tax techniques in order to avoid a repetitive evaluation, and then based on the result, the criminal court should determine the real person or entity who perpetrated the crime. With regard to the second type of crime, no knowledge of tax technique is required for the investigation into intent and thus in conclusion and unlike with the first case, the tax court is recommended to take the criminal court decision into account.
İHAM İçtihadı Açısından Türkiye’de Vergi ve Ceza Yargılamalarının Etkileşimi Sorunu
Barış BahçeciBu çalışmanın konusu, İnsan Hakları Avrupa Sözleşmesine (İHAS/Sözleşme) ek 7 numaralı protokolün 4. maddesi (P 7-4) kapsamında geliştirilen, vergi ve ceza yargılamaları arasında içerik ve zaman yönünden bağlantılı olma koşulunun Türk hukuku açısından doğurduğu uyum sorunudur. Bu kapsamda öncelikle İnsan Hakları Avrupa Mahkemesi (İHAM) içtihadının gelişim çizgisi incelenmiş, 2014 yılında Finlandiya’ya karşı verilen Glantz ve Nykänen kararları ile başlayan ve son olarak 2021 yılında İzlanda’ya karşı verilen Kristjansson kararına kadar, içerik ve zaman unsurlarının nasıl yorumlandığı analiz edilmiştir. Ardından İHAM’ın yarattığı içtihadın Türk hukuku ile uyumsuz yönleri ortaya konulmuştur. Son bölümde, içerik ve zaman yönünden bir bağlantının içtihat yoluyla kurulabileceği iddiasıyla bir çözüm yolu önerilmiştir. Bu bağlamda, Vergi Usûl Kanunu (VUK) md 359’da yer alan ve kasıt incelemesi yapılırken vergi tekniği bilgisine ihtiyaç duyulan ve duyulmayan suçlar arasında sistematik bir ayrım yapılmıştır. Birinci gruba giren suçlarda, mükerrer bir değerlendirmenin önüne geçmek için, kasıt incelemesinin vergi tekniği bilgisiyle öne çıkan vergi mahkemesince yapılması, varılacak sonuca göre suçun gerçek kişi failinin ceza mahkemesince belirlenmesi önerilmektedir. İkinci grup suçlarda ise kasıt incelemesi için bir vergi tekniği bilgisi gerekmediği gözetilerek, ilkinin aksine ceza mahkemesi kararının vergi mahkemesince dikkate alınması gerektiği sonucuna ulaşılmaktadır.
Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 (P7-4) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), to which Turkey became a party in 2016, is interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) within the framework of the ne bis in idem rule. In this context, jurisprudence dictates that tax and criminal court proceedings dealing with the same issue should be “sufficiently close in substance and in time.” This approach, which emerged with the Glantz and Nykänen judgments in 2014, was applied by expanding its scope in the Kristjansson judgment in 2021. Even though the jurisprudence of the ECtHR does not proceed in a straight line, according to the established part, there is a requirement of the connection in terms of substance. As explained in the Nykänen and Glantz rulings with regard to both proceedings, the State Parties should avoid repetition in evaluating the facts of the case. This approach became more concrete in the A and B ruling, the Court concluded that in order to establish a connection in substance, evidence collected in one of the tax or penalty sets must also be taken into account in the other set. As can be seen from other rulings since the Johanesson ruling, the duplication of collection and evaluation of evidence leads to a breach of the P7-4. Moreover, the prolonged trial period due to this disconnection also leads to the problem of connection in terms of “time” because recollecting the same evidence in the second trial involves a duplication of work in terms of the trial as well as unnecessarily prolonging the process for the prosecuted. Therefore, in order to pass the connection test in terms of “substance” and “time,” eliminating the practices that lead to duplication is important, and the intertrial interaction method should be used for this.
Apart from this procedure, no other legal regulation exists in Turkish law on ensuring the interactions between tax and criminal courts. Moreover, both courts collect evidence separately and conduct a deliberate examination of the same act. Clearly this situation is incompatible with the case-law of the ECtHR. In this respect, the study offers a possible solution to the problem with no need for a new regulation. In this context, acts subject to tax crimes in Turkish Law should be classified under two types, and the roles of the tax and criminal courts should be determined according to the nature of the act.
Due to the crimes regulated in Article 359 of Turkish Tax Proceedings Law (VUK) being far removed from forming a systematic whole, acting in accordance with the characteristics of these crimes would be more appropriate than following a single procedure for all the crimes in the article. Therefore, such crimes can be divided into two types with regard to the intent to be investigated: Those that do and those that do not require knowledge of tax techniques. With its knowledge of tax techniques, the tax court is more competent regarding proceedings of the first type, such as forgery and accounting fraud, whether committed intentionally or not. The criminal court, on the other hand, has competences unavailable to the tax court with regard to finding the perpetrator of crimes that are understood to have been committed intentionally on behalf of a legal entity or person. In this context, no contradiction or connection problem occurs between the tax court’s failure to annul the triple tax loss penalty for issuing false documents on behalf of the legal person or entity on the grounds of intent regarding the incident nor with the acquittal of the legal person’s legal representative on the grounds that that person is not the perpetrator.
Meanwhile, no special knowledge of tax techniques would be required during proceedings for the second type of crimes, such as concealment or invoices created without an agreement with the Ministry of Finance, and therefore the criminal court does not need to wait for the tax court’s ruling. On the contrary, the results from the criminal court should be made available to the tax court. This dual solution can be achieved by the case-law to be formed by the Turkish High Courts. Therefore, this interaction problem can be solved without the need for a new law to be made.
