Announcement of tax debtors list pays off - New list and electronic VAT return filing across Serbia in early April

Announcement of the list of tax debtors attracted negative comments from the public, but people at the Tax Administration claim that it boosted tax payments by 9%. They also say that a new list will be published in early April. In a talk with eKapija, Director of the Tax Administration Dragutin Radosavljevic announced that the possibility of electronic filing of VAT returns would be introduced across the entire country, thus enabling the economy sector to save EUR 600 million annually.

- As of Tuesday, April 3rd, people all around Serbia will be able to file their VAT returns electronically. This option has so far been available only in several cities. All 115,000 VAT payers will be filing their returns electronically, thus saving both time and money - said Radosavljevic.

Our interlocutor added that electronic filing would be made possible for all tax returns until the end of 2012, including individual income tax returns. People at the Tax Administration expect to receive about 20,000 individual income tax returns from citizens who made nearly RSD 2 million worth of profits last year.

- The deadline to submit individual income tax returns expired last week. All citizens whose income exceeded RSD 1.9 million were to submit the tax return. According to our records, there were 17,500 of them as of March 15. For well-known reasons, that is, due to delays and filing of tax returns via mail, we expect that number to be close to 20,000 - Radosavljevic explained.

Dragutin Radosavljevic

He announced to eKapija that the Tax Administration would publish a new list of tax debtors in early April, which would be made on the basis of amendments to the Law on Tax Procedure and Tax Administration.

No salaries until taxes are paid

Starting 1 July 2012, banks will not be able to pay monthly salaries to clients if their employer has failed to pay payroll taxes. Employers had an obligation to withhold 11% of the gross salary for the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, 6.75% for health insurance, 0.77% for the National Employment Agency and 12% for the state.

- In the future, each employer will be paying these four taxes to a single account, so that the process will be cheaper because the bank fee will be lower - Radosavljevic said, adding that the whole process at the bank would take only few seconds.

- There are over 250,000 employers in Serbia having between one and few thousand employees, which is way too many to control when there are only 707 field control inspectors available. Most of them are not paying taxes, all funds experience big problems, so that the state has to give them money from the budget, which needs to be prevented - Radosavljevic pointed out.

Suzana Obradovic