Citizens constantly find themselves in a situation where they have to pay a bill that is not rounded off. How much do we pay then - more or less? And to whom does the difference go?
Tamara S. has an entrepreneurial company and every year, like all other entrepreneurs, she pays an eco tax to the state.
This levy is 5.000 dinars per year, but it can be paid in four installments. To Tamara, each of those installments came with a different amount. The first was 1232,88 dinars, the second 1246,58, and the third and fourth 1260,27 dinars each.
"The taxpayer is obliged to pay the determined amount of compensation quarterly, in proportion to the number of days in the quarter for which the compensation is paid in relation to the obligation determined for the calendar year, within 15 days from the end of the quarter," its decision states.
However, there is a catch.
Although most entrepreneurs pay this tax at once, if Tamara chose to do as it is written in the decision and pay the debt to the state on a quarterly basis and pay each payment individually - she would have to deal with support, smaller monetary units, and few people know how it is calculated.
Depending on whether he pays his tax online or goes to the post office or bank - he will actually pay a different amount.
Serbia is the only country in Europe that expresses prices in denominations that do not exist.
Money as a coin has long since been removed from circulation, National Bank of Serbia gave the instruction that the amounts in the shops should be rounded up. So, for example, if something costs 10,49 dinars, the NBS recommends paying only 10 dinars, and if it costs 10,51 dinars, the customer should pay 11 dinars.
Few respect that in practice. Because if you give ten dinars at the cash register, the cashier would look at you blankly and wait for more dinars, because he has a deficit in the cash register afterwards.
Although the NBS suggested that the prices should no longer be marked in pars, that is, to put ten or 11 dinars in this particular example, sellers do not want to give up the marketing power of par. Because, say, 99 sounds much better than 100.
For a long time, consumers' associations have appealed that it is pointless to express prices in denominations that do not physically exist, that is, so that the change cannot be returned to consumers.
How it manifests itself at the end of the month and year for traders is a question for the financial police and the market inspection. But the question arises as to who and why it is not controlled and why this practice is not abolished.
The pro-state Tanjug also did a story about this problem a few years ago.
"When rounding the final amounts in cash payment transactions, a neutral effect is achieved, that is, the final amounts of prices that are rounded to zero dinars or to one dinar offset each other," they told Tanjug in the NBS.
At the time, the NBS said that "in cashless payment transactions, prices can still be expressed and paid in money".
In the case of Tamarin, and in all similar situations, the state is given the exact amount without cash, with all the money entered, as part of dinars. Thus, if Tamara pays this tax online, the third installment will be exactly 1260,27 dinars.
If she goes to the post office or bank, they are obliged by law to charge her only 1260 dinars. Although the state clarified that in this way plus and minus surplus or deficit of money are canceled, what if some debts are paid online and some in cash?
There are 370.000 entrepreneurs in Serbia alone, according to data from Naled, and the number of people who pay utility bills in the country is in the millions. Three million people pay for electricity alone every month.
Who would be in vain to deal with it, to pay the first installment, which in Tamara's case is 1232,88 dinars, online in the exact amount, and for the third, which is 1260,27 dinars, to go to the post office and pay 27 pars less - he could save.
Some money is constantly circulating there, being overpaid or given less, without a regulated system.
Tanjug previously wrote that the NBS states that it is not competent to make decisions on the rounding of final calculations, but only the prices in non-cash payments.
In the Ministry of Trade, Tanjug was told that they are also not responsible for the question of why money still exists in prices, while in the Ministry of Finance they said that it is within the competence of the NBS.
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