As is known, in accordance with Law No. 5604 on the Establishment of Fiscal Holidays, the fiscal holiday in 2025 will start on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, and will end on Sunday, July 20, 2025.

The deadlines for declarations, notifications, objections, and payments made to the Social Security Institution (SGK) are also affected by the fiscal holiday.

With the Turkish Personal Data Protection Board's ("Board") Principle Decision dated 10 June 2025 and numbered 2025/1072 ("Decision"), published in the Official Gazette dated 26 June 2025 and numbered 32938, the legal nature of sending verification codes via SMS within the scope of product and service delivery processes has been examined, and the corresponding data protection obligations have been clarified.

In order to prevent unregistered employment, protect employee rights, and ensure financial oversight, it is a legal obligation under both labor and tax legislation in Türkiye for employers to make all types of payments to employees—such as wages, bonuses, premiums, and similar compensations—through banks.

While the obligation to pay wages via bank transfers is widely recognized under the Labor Law No. 4857 for workplaces employing more than a certain number of workers, the requirement under tax legislation to make payments exceeding a specified threshold through intermediary financial institutions and to substantiate such transactions with documentation issued by these institutions—is often overlooked in practice.

According to the announcement made by the Social Security Institution (SSI) on 18 June 2025, the deadline for the payment of premium debts pertaining to the April 2025 period has been set as June 25, 2025, in cases where such debts are paid through the offsetting of VAT refund receivables.

This adjustment was introduced following a notification by the Revenue Administration of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, indicating that some taxpayers may encounter delays in the offsetting process of their VAT refund receivables against premium debts for the April 2025 period by the initial deadline of June 20, 2025.