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After about an hour of trying different search strings, I've read umpteen pages that all assume the person's income is from Turkish sources.  One of them hints that a pension from another country is exempt.  None of them had anything to say about interest, social security, or capital gains from another country.  Nor static assets, i.e., the account balances and stock shares owned.

I don't live in Turkey now—I'm trying to estimate expenses if I move there.  Is there a source a non-lawyer can consult on this?  Not looking for info on IRS taxes—I'm already familiar with that.

I've been checking into a lot of countries and running into the same problem.  For reasons I don't understand, even pages about retiring in another country seem to have this problem.

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  • Would you mind linking that "one of them"? Generally pension income is earned income, and is taxed as such. I've never heard of exempting pensions outright. There are tax treaty provisions that may be relevant, but that depends on the countries involved.
    – littleadv
    Commented Oct 29, 2022 at 5:21
  • Actually, the USA/Spain tax treaty is about the same as USA/Turkey for pensions and Social Security. The web page that said pensions are exempt may be incorrect. But thought the treaty allows them to tax the pensions, it's possible they may have chosen to waive that right.
    – WGroleau
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 4:10
  • The linked article talks about UK pensions, though, you're asking about US (I assume, since you've mentioned the IRS). Social Security is not a pension and is handled differently. I don't know if there's a totalization agreement between the US and Turkey in terms of benefits, but for tax purposes SS income is usually exempt by tax treaties.
    – littleadv
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 20:07
  • To quote, "your UK (and other) pensions will not be taxed …"
    – WGroleau
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 22:21
  • I don't know what "other" pensions UK folks have, you should probably reach the writer to ask. But it was clearly written with the UK folks as the target audience, not US.
    – littleadv
    Commented Oct 31, 2022 at 0:15

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Article 18, paragraph 1 of the USA/Turkey tax treaty seems to say the opposite of the other web page I mentioned.  Article 18, paragraph 2 of the treaty seems to say that only USA can tax my Social Security.

Articles 10 & 11 say that both countries can tax the interest and dividends paid by institutions in USA. But those articles have all sort of confusing limits and caveats and gobbledy-gook.

So, it looks like I will pay taxes to Turkey if I move there. But how much, I'm not sure.  I did find Turkey's 2020 tax rate schedule, so I know approximately what I would pay if they tax all my income, i.e., I would pay something less than that but I don't know how much less.

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  • Social security is not pension....
    – littleadv
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 3:32
  • I know that. As I said, pensions are in paragraph one and social security in paragraph two.
    – WGroleau
    Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 4:07

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