One fourth of real estate items in local self-governments outside tax records – Switzerland to help achieve better tax collection

The inventory of real estate will start in 40 local self-governments in order to determine who is not paying the property tax.

That data updating and reforming the process of tax collection provide results has been shown by the previous such project, in which nine municipalities of eastern Serbia took part.

In some of them, the collection has increased by nearly 200% without raising the tax rate. The municipalities and partners from the Government of Serbia and Switzerland are therefore prepared for the new project, which started on Monday, September 17.

Aleksandar Grunauer, the head of the project Reform of Property Tax, points out that as much as 25% of the real estate is outside the records of the local tax administrations.

– We will see what the real situation is together with people on site, and they, as well as other citizens, will pay the taxes for the first time. Another aspect is that there are people convinced that they are smarter than the state and that they don't have to pay the taxes, so they don't meet their obligations even when they are sent the payment slip. We will provide technical support to the local self-government and the tax administration in order to stop this and to sanction those who have not been paying their taxes – Grunauer said for RTS.

Forty local self-governments will be included in the project and they will be selected in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and the Ministry of Finance, as well as the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities. This will cover around 2.5 million citizens, Grunauer said.

He says that municipalities are recognizing the need to step up the tax collection and that it was in their own interest as well.

– When financial resources are tight, new options need to be found in order to invest in the development of the self-government, improved living conditions and the business environment – Grunauer said and pointed out that the biggest problem was that tax administration had very few employees.

Local self-government oblige to invest the money which will eventually be gotten by the most successful municipalities in development projects.

– We expect around a million Swiss francs donated by the Swiss government to be put into infrastructure – Grunauer concluded.

Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Branko Ruzic, Minister of Finance Dusan Vujovic and Ambassador of Switzerland to Serbia Philippe Guex signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Program of Reform of Property Tax on Monday, September 18, 2017, Tanjug reports.

Ministarstvo državne uprave i lokalne samouprave Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Poreska uprava Srbije

Government of Switzerland

Ambasada Švajcarske Beograd

Stalna konferencija gradova i opština

Swiss government

Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities

Reform of Property Tax

tax

property tax

collection of property tax

real estate record

tax payment

tax collection

Aleksandar Grunauer

reform of tax collection

reform of tax system

branko Ruzic

Dusan Vujovic

Philippe Guex