Newsletter-21

396 NEWSLETTER 2016 Provisions Concerning Stamp Tax Law Proportional Stamp Tax on Multiple Copies: Pursuant to the amendment of Article 5 of the Law, in the event of issuance of multiple copies of the same paper that is subject to proportional stamp tax, only one copy shall be subject to the stamp tax. Prior to the amendment, in practice, and due to the parties’ intention not to pay multiple stamp taxes, only one of the parties may retain a signed original, and the other parties must be given ordinary photocopies, or the parties would be exposed to multiple stamp tax obligations for the same paper 3 . Such defect originated in practice is recovered with the amendment. Please note that such amendment is only predicted for proportional stamp tax and the fixed stamp tax is not subject to the amendment; fixed stamp tax shall accrue on as much as the number of copies of the paper. Multiple Guaranty or Ordinary Suretyship Undertakings on the Same Paper: Pursuant to the amendment made on Article 6 of the Law, the regulation predicting a separate collection of stamp tax for each guaranty, and ordinary suretyship undertakings under the same agreement, gives its place to the regulation predicting the sole collec- tion of stamp tax on the multiple guarantees or ordinary suretyship under the same agreement. Pursuant to the second paragraph of the same Article, in the event of multiple arrangements or transactions under an agreement, only the tax of on the arrangement or transaction that is subject to a higher tax amount between these shall be accrued. In this regard, in the event of the existence of multiple guarantees or ordinary suretyship undertakings under an agreement, only the under- taking with the highest amount among these shall be subject to stamp tax in addition to the stamp tax due on the actual agreement. Punitive Undertakings under Agreements: Pursuant to the amended regulation in Article 6 of the Law, on punitive undertakings such as the forfeiture and penalty clause, no stamp tax shall accrue unless such undertakings are being made that are subject to a separate agreement. In this regard, through the amendment, on the agreements that include punitive clauses of high numbers, the stamp tax obligation 3 Please see exemplary Court of Appeal Decision of 15th Civil Chamber decision numbered 2015/420 and dated 27.1.2015.