Could We Say “Tax Fraud” Instead of “Tax Evasion Offence”?

When the acts in Article 359 of the Tax Procedure Law, our patchwork provision that prefers to list the acts one by one and therefore brings with it the debate on “alternative acts”, are examined, it can be seen that almost all of them contain the element of deceit. Not only accounting fraud but the other acts that lead to tax evasion are in essence imbued with deceit.

Although some acts in this article, such as issuing or using false documents, are mistakenly compared with the other forgery offences, it is not the document itself but the underlying relationship that is false, and that association has brought mistaken results with it. If there is an offence with which tax evasion should be compared, it is, if anything, fraud. For in the offence of tax evasion, as in the offence of fraud, there is deceit.

Deceit can be understood as any act such as a scheme, a trick, a game or an intrigue that misleads and deceives the other party by non-physical means. The meaning of deceitful conduct is the distortion, concealment and hiding of the truth through a set of false, artificial acts.

Giving the article the title “Tax Fraud” would also remove the need to list one by one, in the text of the article, the acts that lead to tax evasion; with such an amendment, every kind of deceitful conduct in the material matters covered by the offence would give rise to it. Otherwise it is likely that the present problematic structure of Article 359 will turn into a Gordian knot.