The National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED) announced today that it is proposing to include in the new National Program for the Suppression of the Gray Economy measures that encourage and facilitate legal business and employment, which ensure sanctioning of those who operate illegally, as well as educational measures tax discipline and transparency of spending tax revenues are increasing.
“Among the priorities are the specialization and digitalization of courts, as well as further strengthening the capacity of inspections and the Tax Administration. In order to reduce the financial and administrative burden on the economy, the key measures remain to reduce the tax burden on labor and abolish parafiscals, automate calculations and online tax payments, further simplify company registration and employee registration,” said NALED Vice President for Fair Competition Igor Loncarevic at the conference of the project “Support to the Government of Serbia in combating the gray economy 2018-20”.
He stated that NALED believes that it is necessary to better regulate new, flexible forms of work engagement, such as working from home, working through online platforms or part-time work, because this proved to be important during the pandemic.
“We remain with the recommendation to establish a public, electronic register of non-tax levies in order to increase the predictability and transparency of levies that are charged and so that everyone knows what, how much and to whom taxes and fees are paid,” said Loncarevic.
As he emphasized, the analysis of NALED showed that out of 36 measures and 153 activities, which were foreseen by the five-year strategy, ie the National Program for the Suppression of the Gray Economy, slightly more than 70% were fully or partially realized.
“Among the key results, we single out new digital services for the economy, such as the reform of seasonal employment in agriculture, which turned 44,000 seasonal workers into legal channels,” said Loncarevic.
He also mentioned as successful the online flat tax calculator, which brought predictability for 100,000 lump sums, the inspector system, which networked 36 republic inspections, and the citizens and the economy received a single contact center for inspections.
Among the incentive measures, Loncarevic pointed out the tax exemption for beginners “Start legally”, which in 2019 motivated 811 young, unemployed people to start their business, primarily in the trade and processing industry, with an average saving of 400 euros per employee.
“From this and next year, the Government of Serbia has focused on entrepreneurs engaged in innovation, with a higher limit of tax exemption during the first three years of hunting,” said Loncarevic, noting that NALED’s recommendation is to expand this category to certain categories of flat-rate entrepreneurs.
Among the educational measures, which are aimed at strengthening the tax culture, he pointed out the prize game “Take the bill and win”, which in three cycles so far has included about 41 percent of the population of Serbia in the fight against the gray economy, and which collected and sent more than 200 million fiscal accounts.
He added that several priority measures from the National Program have been started and have yet to be completed in the coming period, such as the introduction of digital fiscalization and the eInvoice system, as well as the expansion of the System for electronic engagement of seasonal workers.
NALED believes that it is necessary to include all segments of society in the development of the new National Program for the Suppression of the Gray Economy, which is why a student debate competition “Stick or Carrot” was launched with the University of Belgrade, with the support of the German Development Agency GIZ and KPMG, in order to hear what young people think about the improvement of tax culture in Serbia, Danas reports.
