Law on the Origin of Property close to completion – High taxes on illegally acquired income

The new Law on the Origin of Property will enable the state to detect “all the hidden property of politicians, people from show business, directors and municipal officials, as well as each instance of tax evasion”, Blic writes in today's issue.

The draft law, which has been viewed by the newspaper, and which the Government of Serbia is working on intensively, “clearly says that the state will get 'a mechanism for determining at any moment how any person has acquired wealth and whether it has been done illegally'”.

The new law, which will come into effect in the first half of 2019, will also feature “a mechanism of charging for illegally acquired real estate, cars, yachts, company stakes or foreign exchange and dinar savings”.

Blic says that the cross-checking of property will be managed by a special unit within the Tax Administration and that illegally acquired income will be taxed at a much higher rate than the current one, with many, “from politicians, through people from show business, to citizens who acquired wealth suddenly” liable to being targeted, a source from the Government of Serbia told Blic.

Criminal charges are also an option if it is determined that the acquisition of wealth involved criminal activities.