The Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane launched the Tanzimat era and called for a standardized, regular system of taxation to curb abuses and strengthen central state finance—setting a reform agenda that targeted practices such as tax farming.
Ottoman authorities officially abolished iltizām (tax farming via auctioned collection rights). Although variants persisted in practice, the abolition marked an important benchmark in the shift toward tax collection supervised by public officials.
The Islahat Fermanı reiterated Tanzimat commitments to equal treatment of subjects regardless of creed, reinforcing a policy direction toward more uniform fiscal obligations and administration under the central state.
The Ottoman Land Code (1858) required registration of land rights and aimed, in part, to increase tax revenue and strengthen state control—linking property administration more tightly to fiscal extraction.
The Vilayet Law reorganized provinces, replacing the older eyalet system and promoting more standardized provincial governance—an administrative foundation for more regularized local fiscal management and tax collection.
Facing a severe fiscal crisis, the Ottoman state announced a moratorium on external debt payments, signaling insolvency pressures that later culminated in creditor control over specified revenues.
As debt pressures mounted, key revenues (including from salt) were increasingly pledged as collateral; by 1879 the salt sector was assigned to financiers as part of these arrangements, foreshadowing later internationalized revenue administration.
The Muharrem Decree reorganized Ottoman public debt and created the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Düyûn-ı Umûmiyye), assigning major revenue streams to an institution shaped by foreign creditors—substantially constraining fiscal sovereignty.
A creditor-backed Régie (Ottoman Tobacco Company) was formed to monopolize tobacco and channel revenues toward debt service, embedding fiscal extraction in monopolies and earmarked revenue collection.
The Treaty of Lausanne internationally recognized the Republic of Turkey and provided for the abolition of capitulations (Article 28), strengthening the new state’s authority over taxation and economic regulation by ending many extraterritorial fiscal privileges.
The Republic abolished the aşar (tithe) tax, a major levy on agricultural production. Its removal reshaped rural taxation and pushed the state to seek alternative revenues, including greater reliance on indirect taxes and monopolies.
Turkey and other successor states reached a final agreement on allocating and repaying portions of the Ottoman foreign debt, continuing the transition from imperial-era fiscal obligations toward a consolidated republican fiscal state.
Taxation and fiscal reform: from Ottoman tax farms to the Republican fiscal state (1839–1930)
