The Tax Debtors List; Transparency or Public Shaming?

With Tax Procedure Law General Communiqué No. 597, published in the Official Gazette of 10 November 2026, the Revenue Administration has announced this year's timetable for the tax debtors list. Taxpayers who owe 5,000,000 TL or more in overdue debt to any single tax office, or whose finalised taxes and penalties reach that amount, will be posted by name and trade name on the notice boards of tax offices between 1 and 15 December and on the Administration's website between 16 and 30 December. For years the public has called this the "list of tax deadbeats". The question a lawyer must ask is a different one; is this list really a collection tool, or a shaming penalty operating in the shadow of the law?

The legal basis is the fourth paragraph of Article 5 of the Tax Procedure Law. Tax confidentiality is one of the oldest and strongest guarantees in that Law; the taxpayer's returns, wealth and affairs stay in the administration's vault. The paragraph carves out an exception by stating that finalised taxes and penalties, and debts unpaid after their due date, may be disclosed by the Ministry. The first point to notice is this; the Law does not determine who will be disclosed, above what amount, in which medium or for how long. The threshold, the calendar and the scope are drawn every year by a communiqué, at the administration's discretion. Letting a communiqué rather than a statute draw the limits of an exception to a fundamental right recalls the decision the Constitutional Court handed down at the start of this year on electronic service of tax notices. In that decision the Court held that leaving the Ministry to determine the procedure and principles, without the basic principles being fixed in the statute, was incompatible with the rule that a right may be restricted only by law. The same logic applies to the debtors list.

The second point is the threshold itself. The 5 million TL limit was the same last year. In a country where inflation runs at these levels, leaving the threshold unchanged means the list grows a little wider every year; a business that would not have made the list yesterday makes it today. Moreover, the test operates per tax office. A taxpayer owing four million lira to each of three separate tax offices stays off the list, while a taxpayer owing five million lira to a single office is published. The principle of equal treatment of taxpayers in equal positions erodes here.

The third point, and to my mind the most striking, is hidden in a detail of the Communiqué. Where a receivable is one that cannot be collected, or is understood to be uncollectible, within the meaning of Law No. 6183 on the Procedure for the Collection of Public Receivables, the explanation column of the lists will carry the phrase "The receivable has no prospect of collection." The administration is publishing certain receivables while knowing full well it cannot collect them. Exposing the holder of a debt that is admitted from the outset to be uncollectible has nothing left to do with collection; what remains is a reputational sanction under the name of deterrence. Yet a sanction can only be prescribed by law and in a proportionate manner.

The world has already had this debate. In its judgment of 9 March 2023 in L.B. v. Hungary (Application No. 36345/16), the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights found that the tax authority's online publication of the names and home addresses of persons owing more than a set amount violated Article 8 of the Convention, which protects the right to respect for private life. The Court accepted that securing tax compliance was a legitimate aim; but it did not consider it necessary in a democratic society for the legislature to set up a general and automatic publication regime while giving almost no weight to matters such as data protection, the risk of misuse and the unlimited reach of the internet. The fact that the Chamber had found no violation and the Grand Chamber reached the opposite conclusion also shows how thoroughly this case law was debated before it matured.

The Turkish practice may look more measured than Hungary's; the list is limited to name, trade name and amount, and online publication lasts fifteen days. Yet Strasbourg's real criticism was aimed less at the type of data published than at the automatic nature of the method and the absence of individual assessment. The situation is the same here. No separate assessment is provided for the taxpayer who pays after 20 November, whose debt is in fact being collected through an ongoing attachment, or who is in a state of force majeure; Communiqué No. 597 contains no provision on these points. Excluding those who have benefited from restructuring laws is the right choice; but that exception rewards having applied under particular statutes rather than measuring any willingness to pay.

The problem is no simpler under the Personal Data Protection Law. Being expressly provided for in statute is one of the lawful grounds for processing personal data. Yet the principle in Article 4 of that Law, that processing must be relevant, limited and proportionate to its purpose, applies to processing with a statutory basis as well. The administration cannot ignore the difference between a name and an amount being open to everyone for fifteen days and third parties copying those lists and putting them into circulation indefinitely. In a world where the internet does not forget, a fifteen day notice effectively means a lifelong record.

The proposal is clear. The threshold, scope and duration of disclosure should be fixed by statute; receivables the administration itself has found to be uncollectible should be removed from the list; the taxpayer should receive a brief notice before publication, with an opportunity to pay or object; and online publication should use a format closed to search engines and impossible to copy. It is legitimate for the state to pursue its receivables; keeping the exception to tax confidentiality proportionate is a constitutional obligation.

The way to collect a tax debt is attachment, security and the courts. The most powerful tool of a state that wants to collect what it is owed is still the law itself; the notice board never carried that power.

This article draws on Tax Procedure Law General Communiqué No. 597, published in Official Gazette No. 33426 of 10 November 2026, the Constitutional Court's press release on its decision of 15 January 2026 in file E.2025/94, and the judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in L.B. v. Hungary.