TEHRAN (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has passed a bill to parliament to increase the value added tax on some goods, including fuel and cigarettes, Turkish media reported.
The new project proposes to increase the fuel tax by 20.9 percent, alcoholic beverages by 23.9 and cigarettes by 2.8 percent.
Domestic product tax will increase by 19.2 percent, telephone tax by 16.3 percent, and import duties will rise by 21.2 percent.
News of the proposed tax increase comes days after the office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented the parliament for the budget for 2019 for discussion and ratification.
Initial information revealed many surprises, most notably the doubling of the presidential budget by 233 percent.
Official figures showed a rise in the budget deficit and unemployment rate, reflecting the large decline of the Turkish economy since the collapse of the pound against the dollar.
The Turkish budget deficit reached 6 billion lira (1.03 billion dollars) in September, according to the Ministry of Finance.
The September budget showed an initial surplus, excluding interest payments, of LL 4.3 billion. The budget deficit hit LL 56.7 billion in the first nine months of the year, according to figures.
On the other hand, data from the Institute of Statistics of Turkey, the unemployment rate reached 10.8 percent in the period from June to August, compared with 10.2 percent between May and July.
Non-farm unemployment averaged 12.9 percent from June to August, the figures showed, compared with 12.1 percent between May and July.
The Turkish lira has lost more than 40 percent of its value since the beginning of the year because of the policies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who controls the central bank.
