ERDEM-NEWSLETTER-2018-metin

230 NEWSLETTER 2018 Crowdfunding in Turkey* Att. Nezihe Boran Demir Introduction The Law Amending Certain Tax Laws and Certain Other Laws under law no. 7061 (“Omnibus Law”) published in the Official Ga- zette dated 5 December 2017 and numbered 30261, has the purpose to amend the tax legislation alongside the other legislation, such as Capital Markets Law No. 6362 1 (“Capital Markets Law”) . With the amendments to the Capital Markets Law, crowdfunding has been legally accepted. Respective provisions regarding crowdfunding are entered into force as of publication of the Omnibus Law. As previ- ously mentioned within the article named the Draft Law on Crowd- funding 2 , by the enactment of the provisions of crowdfunding, the legislator has aimed to achieve to keep the crowdfunding platforms in a free market, simultaneously bringing about protection mechanisms. This article will mainly focus on the innovations introduced under the Capital Markets Law with respect to crowdfunding. What is Crowdfunding? Crowdfunding is an alternative financing method for funding projects and entrepreneurs, and is defined under the Capital Markets Law as fund-raising from the public by means of crowdfunding plat- forms as the necessary funding for an entrepreneur or a project within the scope of the rules to be determined by the Capital Market Board. In practice, there are three main models that are commonly used, those being donation-based, reward-based, or investment-based crowd- * Article of January 2018 1 Capital Market Law No. 6362, OG, 30.12.2012, No. 28513. 2 Boran Demir, Nezihe : “The Draft Law on Crowdfunding” , April 2017, http:// www.erdem-erdem.av.tr/publications/newsletter/the-draft-law-on-crowdfund- ing/; (Access date: 29.01.2018).