ECONOMY er-national

Turkish minister urges Google to register as taxpayer

ANKARA — Bloomberg | 6/8/2010 12:00:00 AM |

Turkey’s communications minister called on Google Inc. to register as a taxpayer in the country, a step he said would help accelerate the lifting of a ban on the company’s Youtube video-sharing website.

“The company should open a representation,” Transport and Communications Minister Binali Yıldırım said in Ankara on Tuesday. “Youtube is a tax-payer in 20 countries, and we want them to do the same in Turkey.”

Turkey’s Finance Ministry has given Google a tax demand of 30 million liras ($18.6 million), Yıldırım said Tuesday.

Youtube has been banned in Turkey since 2008 when a court ruled that a video on the site had insulted the nation's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.