Ex Officio Deregistration under Article 160/A; Saying “High Risk” Is Not Proving the Risk

Tax Court, 13.04.2026 (stay of execution)

A company with goods on its premises, two employees actually working, a vehicle registered in its name and an activity clearly established at the site inspection learns one morning that its tax registration has been cancelled ex officio under Article 160/A of the Tax Procedure Law and that TRY 15,071,839.62 in security is demanded before it can be registered again.

In the file I conducted as counsel the court answered this question in the language of the law. Article 160/A does not give the administration the power to decide deregistration arbitrarily; it ties the act to concrete and legally valid findings, a matter of bound competence in the classic sense. The file contained no information or documents on the actual movement of goods, no input and cost analysis, and no tax technique report or counter-finding on the firms with which the company traded. Although requested by interim order, the administration could not produce a single document substantiating its claim that “the risk of issuing false documents is high”. The site inspection said exactly the opposite.

Holding that the conditions required by Article 160/A were not met, that the act was clearly unlawful and that its application would cause damage difficult to repair, the court unanimously stayed execution without requiring security.

Article 160/A is a strong and legitimate instrument given to the administration to combat the false document ecosystem. The legitimacy of the instrument, however, cannot be considered apart from the lawfulness of the way it is used. The software and risk scores in the hands of the administration produce a mathematical conviction; what the law demands is a legal conviction. Behind every file the algorithm marks “red” there is an enterprise that exists with its workers, its goods and its livelihood.