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1.2 The Birth of “Merdiven (Stairs) Method” Kutadgu Bilig 2 : “Upon conquering a land with your soldiers, you become rich; by sharing this richness with your soldiers, you increase the number of your soldiers; with this increase in the number of soldiers you have more spoils of war and with the spoils you expand your army, and this goes on like this…” This is the method of Cengizhan’s conquest, and it depends on plundering. Method of accounting in such a system relies on not the place where spoils of war were gained but on controlling the distribution of the spoils. This is because renewal of the source of income and gaining tax-income from this source are of secondary importance. The reason for this is the fact that the income depends on new conquests that mean the occupation and plunder of other countries. The method of accounting about soldiers’ shares is a simple accounting of expenditures (İnalcık, 2004, 318). Prof. Mc. Neil of University of Chicago” says in his book called The Rise of the West “the Roman and Ottoman Empires established powerful and long lasting empires by making their people richer, providing welfare and security and increasing tax sources (and making them constant).” According to Prof. Halil Inalcık (İnalcık, 2004, 319), Iranian state policy is also similar to this. In his work “…state should be fair. Justice means protecting people from cruelty. If you treat the public fairly and protect the community, it works in security and becomes richer and if the public becomes richer, your treasure and number of soldiers increase, when the number of soldiers increase, your power increases, with increased authority, you protect your people more efficiently. Kutadgu Bilig advises this system as a second one. Ottoman state system depends on this… Ottoman Empire became rich by protecting the villagers and workers that work in farms... if a civil servant collects more tax than he should have, the community has the right to go to Kadı (judge) both individually or as a group. If Kadı doesn’t pay attention to the complaint, people have the right go to Divan-ı Hümayun (Government). Complaints to the Divan-ı Hümayun are written in a notebook called Mühimme (which means a notebook for important matters)...” he says. Without any doubt, the needs of accounting for such a state order are high. Adoption of accrual system is needed for following the taxation according to the production and income. In general, tax is collected from three sources: agricultural production, commercial income and people. (like Cizye tax) 3 2 It is a book written by Yûsuf Has Hâcib in 1069-1070. It means Blessed Knowledge. It gives advices to statesmen and managers. 3 Cizye tax: tax that was paid by non-muslims so that they do not do military service and they are protected 8
Tax that is collected from agricultural production, namely öşür, contains the 1/8 of the agricultural product. Mültezim (tax collector) is commissioned to collect tax (Iltizam Usulü). Mültezim is debited. The debited amount is accrued and this amount is entered and by collecting taxes the amount that Mültezim is debited decreases. Commercial income places (customs, salt producing places) are rented for three years. The amount of rent per year is written in rental contract. This is called mukataa order. The amount of rent per year is registered by accrual rules and Mukataacı (tenant) is debited. The loan decreases with the amount taken from Mukataacı. Tax that is collected from non-Muslims (Cizye tax) is collected either according to the number of houses or individually. Defterdarlık (The Office of the director of finance of a province) announces the amount of the tax that will be collected in relation to the accrual system to the religious representative of the Non-Muslim area. Kadı of the area is in charge of the tax that is accrued. Tax amount that is accrued decreases with the tax being collected. Procedure of accruement has characteristics like protecting tax payer, taking into account his means for paying tax and making the state’s sources of income continuous. Running such a system certainly requires a highly developed state accounting policy. Birth of “Merdiven (stairs) method” in Iran and its development in the Ottoman Empire is not a coincidence. The states that ruled these lands had always seen their tax payers as sources of income in order to achieve the continuity of their states. Furthermore, they gave priority to the control of the expenses of the state. As a result of this, necessity for a developed accounting system emerged. 1.3 Characteristics of “Merdiven (Stairs) Method” Merdiven (Stairs) method for bookkeeping, used by Turkish States between 14th and 19th century, had its roots in Ilhanians. 9
Page 1: AN ACCOUNTING SYSTEM USED BETWEEN 1
Page 4 and 5: RÉSUMÉ: SYSTEME DE LA COMPTABİL
Page 6 and 7: Although Ilhanians State was a shor
Page 10 and 11: We can see the characteristics of
Page 12 and 13: 1.4 Books For Merdiven (Stairs) Met
Page 14 and 15: Saadetname and it became mature wit
Page 16 and 17: account book that takes part in Saa
Page 18 and 19: tradesman to have a register. Becau
Page 20 and 21: countries in their own langauges an
Page 22 and 23: 2.2. The Developments in the Merdiv
Page 24 and 25: When we convert the record above ac
Page 26 and 27: Europe countries had been using for
Page 28 and 29: understood to be an accounting meth

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