Do Repeated Attachments to Prevent the Statute of Limitations on Public Receivables Interrupt the Statute of Limitations?
In tax law, the statute of limitations means that a tax receivable is extinguished by the passage of time. There are two types: the assessment limitation period and the collection limitation period. The assessment limitation period is regulated in Tax Procedure Law No. 213, while the collection limitation period is regulated in Law No. 6183 on the Procedure for the Collection of Public Receivables.
Article 102 of the Law on the Procedure for the Collection of Public Receivables states: "A public receivable becomes time-barred if it is not collected within 5 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the calendar year in which it fell due. The limitation provisions in the special laws on fines are reserved."
Under this provision, if 5 years have elapsed from the beginning of the year following the due date of the tax debt, and none of the circumstances that interrupt or suspend the limitation period has occurred, the tax receivable becomes time-barred, i.e. the creditor administration can no longer claim it.
The circumstances that interrupt the limitation period are set out in Article 103 of the Law. The second of these is the "imposition of an attachment". Accordingly, if an attachment is imposed within the 5-year period, the limitation period is interrupted and starts again. If only part of the debt is collected through the attachment, the limitation period starts over for the remaining debt and runs again for the period specified in the law. However, repeatedly attaching the same assets that have already been attached during this period does not interrupt the limitation period.
An attachment interrupts the limitation period from the date on which the attachment warrant is issued and the attachment is applied. Public receivables therefore become time-barred for collection once 5 years have passed from the beginning of the year following the attachment, and attachments repeated in later years have no effect on the collection limitation period. Accordingly, attachment procedures carried out solely to prevent the debt from becoming time-barred, for example attachments repeatedly applied to bank accounts on different dates (where no asset is actually attached), do not interrupt the limitation period.
