Osman Şenkul
Pericles, considered one of the most powerful statesmen of Ancient Greece, was born in 495 BC and died in 429 BC. During his childhood, he studied under the renowned Greek philosophers Anaxagoras, Damon, and Zeno, and was trained by his teachers to become a skilled politician. He entered political life at the age of thirty. In the elections of 461 BC, he was elected Archon (head of government) from the democratic wing.
Pericles became the President of Athens in 444 BC and implemented reforms in the country. He enacted new laws and established a new system that shifted the tax burden onto the wealthy. He rebuilt Athens from scratch and adorned it with many new works of art and architecture. He gathered the most famous scholars of the Greek people in Athens.
The powerful Pericles, who took action to improve the general welfare of the people, undertook a major tax reform as soon as he took office, which was essentially based on a significant increase in taxes levied on the wealthy. With the taxes collected, significant investments were made in Athens, and a major campaign was launched to ensure that no one was left homeless or without shelter. As recorded in history, Pericles shifted all taxes from the people to the wealthy, strengthening the economy and ushering in a ‘Golden Age’ for the Attica region.
When Pericles learned that a certain type of merchant engaged in export trade was losing large sums of money to pirates, he decided to put an end to this by assigning part of his powerful navy to protect the merchants; for instead of allowing the merchants’ profits to be seized by pirates, it was necessary to convert them into taxes for the benefit of the Athenian people. The more the merchants earned, the more taxes he could collect.
Now, merchant fleets set sail accompanied by warships, travelling together until they passed through pirate-infested waters, then reuniting on the return journey to reach the famous port of Piraeus in Attica without any losses. Pericles’ policies, which completely exempted the people from taxation and focused all taxes on the wealthy, created a systemic infrastructure by focusing taxation in specific areas.
Based on this, during the Pericles era, the following were implemented:
- Road tolls or land taxes,
- Port taxes,
- Import and export taxes,
- Poll taxes for free citizens and slaves,
- Licence fees,
- Progressive property taxes on wealth.
Pericles also imposed high taxes on imported food and other goods in order to protect local production. Families engaged in animal husbandry had to pay a certain fee for grazing their animals on public land. In addition, farmers had to give half of their produce to the state. In addition to these taxes, taxes were levied on salt, fishing, official documents, inheritance, and the rental and sale of property. In short, we are witnessing a serious reversal of this tax system, implemented by the Kingdom of Athens, which spread across certain regions of the lands we live on, approximately 2,500 years ago.
The most important document that clearly reveals the situation in Turkey in this regard is the public annual budget. Therefore, looking at the details of the 2026 budget presented to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey will help us see the picture more clearly. For example, due to the impact of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) interest rate, which is significantly higher than the inflation rate according to Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) data, the state’s interest expenses will increase by 791.6 billion lira in 2026 compared to 2025. Total interest payments will reach 2.7 trillion lira, an increase of 40.6 per cent in one year. Thus, interest payments will account for 14.5 percent of the total budget. This rate was 13.2 percent in 2025. Interest payments in the budget increased by 1.3 points in one year.
More importantly, there will be another ‘tax amnesty’ for capital next year; accordingly, the budget will forego 3 trillion 597 billion lira in tax revenue, providing capital with a 19 percent tax advantage.
The tax collected from employees in 2025, which we are currently finalising, exceeded targets with a realisation rate of 119.5 percent. The realisation rate for taxes collected from companies, however, remained at 73.1 percent. Taxes collected from wages were 20 points above the forecast. Consequently, while the annual increase in taxes collected from the salaried segment reached 88.7 percent, the increase in taxes deducted from companies was limited to 37.5 percent. Therefore, the heavy tax burden on salaried labour increased further in the 2026 budget, and the figures showed that the tax burden was once again placed on the shoulders of workers.
The decline in the share of current transfers in the 2026 budget from 43.26 per cent to 39.93 per cent revealed that the state has cut spending in this area or transferred resources to other items (such as interest). For example, according to official data, the number of children not attending school in the 2023-2024 academic year increased by 38 per cent compared to the previous year, reaching 613,000. When the number of students in MESEM and open education, which increased by 40 per cent in three years, is included, the number of children not enrolled in formal education exceeds 1.5 million. Income tax collected from paid labour through the ‘income tax withholding’ item rose to 2.35 trillion TL in the first 11 months of the year. During the same period, interest expenses in the central budget increased by 55 per cent, reaching 1.94 trillion TL. In contrast, ‘labour’ expenses, which cover the wages, bonuses and social rights of permanent public sector employees, increased by only 43 per cent compared to 2024. The increase in spending on civil servants remained at 26 per cent.
The gross collection target for 2026 for ‘VAT collected domestically’, the most common indirect tax applied to almost all goods and services, is 3 trillion 539.2 billion lira, After VAT refunds of 1 trillion 638.7 billion lira to taxpayers engaged in commercial, industrial, agricultural or freelance activities, exporters and those making incentive-certified investments, the expected net revenue is 1 trillion 900.5 billion TL. The net amount of VAT expected to be collected from imported products to be consumed in 2026 is 2 trillion 92.8 billion lira.
In short, it is possible to present many more official data showing that the burden of taxes is placed on the shoulders of all workers; however, even this alone clearly shows that a significant portion of the heavy tax and other deduction burdens placed on the shoulders of workers in the same lands approximately 25 centuries after Pericles has been transferred from the employers’ shoulders. Therefore, even after such a long time, the way to restore Pericles’ tax system is not to ascend Mount Olympus and consult Zeus, but to reach out to those who bear the burden of taxes.
VERGİ = TAX