The new Turkish Corporate Income Tax Act No. 5520, wholly revising and introducing substantial amendments to the former Corporate Income Tax Act No. 5422 dated 10 June 1949 has been approved by the parliament on 13 June 2006. The Act has now been sent to the President for approval. Most of the provisions are applicable retroactively from 1 January 2006. Transfer pricing rules, however, will be applied from 1 July 2007.

Basic features of the Act are as follows:

(a) Rate reduction. The corporate income tax rate is reduced from 30% to 20%.

(b) Transfer pricing rules. Transfer pricing rules are applicable both in domestic and foreign situations. Under such rules, for the transactions between a company and the related parties to be at arm's length, new pricing methods (comparable uncontrolled price method or cost price method or resale price method) are applied. Hidden profit distr…