Just two months after being appointed director of the Tax Administration (TA), Aleksandar Miljković resigned, the media reported on Wednesday, August 27, in the evening. He was replaced by Marko Marinković from the Security and Information Agency (BIA). According to the news reported by Tanjug, on August 18, the government appointed Marinković as deputy director of the PU, and since then, according to Tanjug, he has "closed 140 casinos".
However, there is every chance that Miljković left, and Marinković came even before August 18 - on the night between August 170 and 27, the police together with tax inspectors went to control casinos and clubs and seized XNUMX machines and ten roulettes (we are talking about municipalities in the south of Serbia, among the poorest in the country). Also, the question is whether the citizens would have learned about the resignation of the first tax collector on August XNUMX if the news about it had not spread on the social network Twitter before noon that Wednesday. By the way, there are no changes on the websites of the Ministry of Finance and the Tax Administration: for them, Miljković is still the director of the PU.
The Ministry has been announcing a "harsh and aggressive fight" against the shadow economy for months. Thanks to the transition to electronic tax payment, the number of controls and inspectors has increased, and with the adoption of the Law on Tax Procedure and Administration, penalties for tax violations have been multiplied, which can go up to two million dinars and closure of the facility for up to 60 days. With these measures, the Ministry wants to at least cover the hole in the budget, which will greatly exceed 200 billion dinars by the end of the year, although the Budget Law for 2014 foresees a little less than 164 billion in total deficit.
All these events and measures were the reason for a conversation with Ivan Simič, a man who was the director of the Tax Administration for less than a year, and who resigned on December 27, 2013, the day after NALED declared him the reformer of the year in the category "head of the regulatory body". .
"WEATHER": Your intention was to stay at the head of the Tax Administration for two years, and then dedicate it again to private business. You didn't even last a year. What did you manage to do while you were a director?, and what were the specific reasons for your resignation?
IVAN SIMIC: I spent eleven hard but also unforgettable months in the Tax Administration. We started big projects with our collaborators and finished many of them, such as the introduction of emails for all employees, an open email for objections from all taxpayers, presentations on Facebook and Twitter. We saved at least 1,5 million euros on postage and better work organization. We worked a lot to establish better interpersonal relations, after many years we started to control the data sent from fiscal cash registers. We also performed field controls at gatherings where they had never been done before, we got a modern one data center, we worked on the introduction of electronic business and only with VAT returns we managed to reach from 0,36 to 100 percent of electronic returns. Unified billing was introduced and at the end of the year we managed to collect more taxes and contributions than ever before. Many people evaluate the efficiency of the Tax Administration only through collection and want immediate results, and they do not know that the 6500 employees of the Tax Administration also need other things, and that is, first of all, to be respected as hard workers and to provide them with the best possible conditions for work, because the budget of the Republic of Serbia depends on them. It is true that my intention was to stay for two years and then return to private business, where I had been for more than 20 years before that. I don't want to talk about the reasons for the resignation. What I can say is that I am very sorry to have to leave and leave the truly wonderful people I worked with. After 11 months, I saw that many of them, not only at the headquarters of the Tax Administration, began to follow my way of working, so they stayed at work longer than they should have, and the Tax Administration needs such people.
What happened 26. in 27. December, when you first spoke with Minister Krstić about future plans, and the next day they resigned?
On the night of December 26 to 27, 2013, I first of all made an analysis of my previous work and once again reviewed my plans for the next year, primarily a new organizational structure, which would lead to a better organization of work and an even more efficient Tax Administration. Since my plans did not match the requirements of the then Minister of Finance, it was best to leave.
The fact that in the creation of the budget for 2013 seems completely incredible. the Tax Administration did not participate either. How is it possible that there is such a gap between PU and the parent Ministry of Finance?
It is not clear to me how this is possible, but as my colleagues told me, the Ministry of Finance never asked the Tax Administration what it thought the collection could be in the next year. That's why I absolutely did not want to accept the criticism that tax collection was not in accordance with the plan, since the plan was unrealistic. That is why it was most important for me as a director that we realistically collected more taxes than in previous years. I hope that this year will be the same, and that the Tax Administration will collect more taxes this year than last year.
You were in the Fiscal Council of Slovenia. How do you evaluate the cooperation of the Serbian Fiscal Council with the PU and their proposed measures for fiscal consolidation?
I have my own opinion about the Fiscal Council. That's why I wish them much success in their future work. The fact is that they were against the introduction of electronic business and I am glad that we proved them wrong. And if they were wrong about that, then the question is whether they are wrong about other things as well. The easiest way is to reduce salaries and pensions. I believe that it is necessary to think about motivating employees to work more and better, and to leave to pensioners what they earned, that is, what they achieved during the years when they were active. Human lives are not mathematics.
Won't the new measures and penalties of the Ministry of Finance only encourage the punished? "slip" into the gray area, and the state remains without revenue? Is there any point in closing reported shops for minor violations?, and to those "on the black" they provide relief for the transition to legal business?
The gray economy is a big problem, not only in Serbia, but in many countries. That is why the fight against it must be organized and the results of that fight cannot be expected immediately. The gray economy has been developing for years, which means that the fight against it will last many years. First of all, I believe that the reduction of the gray economy will occur when there is economic growth, a reduction in the number of unemployed and a reduction in many parafiscal levies that stifle entrepreneurs. It is also necessary to prevent the entry of goods into Serbia without paying taxes and customs duties.
You made negative comments on the adopted Tax Procedure Law. Can you elaborate on the adopted solutions? what's the point?, What's wrong with that law??
I just said that penalties cannot be introduced for those who are late in paying the tax that they have reported, that is, they have not paid the full amount of tax reported. Taxpayers operate in very difficult conditions, paying bills is very bad and that's why such penalties are illogical. The penalty for late payment of taxes is default interest.
Can you comment on the latest developments in PU?
No, I don't want to comment on those events because after all, I led the Tax Administration for almost a year and I worked with those people. I appreciate all of them and I hope that in the end everything ends well, even though the damage that has been done is great.
In July, the then minister Krstić announced "depoliticization of the Tax Administration". Would you characterize the Tax Administration as "politicized" during the time you were its director?
I never understood what he meant by that. Maybe it's my fault, but I didn't understand it anyway. While I was director, I never considered the Tax Administration to be politicized.
Periodically, data on the largest tax debtors comes from the Tax Administration. Why aren't appropriate measures applied to those debtors the very next day, their property is confiscated? Doesn't this way the PU admits that it doesn't have the power to do its job? Why should anyone file and pay taxes, when there are "untouchables" and where is it there "zero tolerance"?
You are a bit wrong there. Precisely because of such considerations, when I was director, we divided tax debtors into categories, so that everyone could see their structure. The fact is that more than two thirds of the tax debt is uncollectible. We are talking about cases where the statute of limitations for tax debt collection has already started, tax debtors are undergoing restructuring, many have ended up in bankruptcies that have already been completed, many tax debtors no longer exist, and the like. That is why those tax debtors and tax debts should be deleted from the records of tax debtors. In the case of other debts that are collectable, all those who did not comply with the law and requested the postponement of collection were blocked. Many of them do not have assets from which the tax debt would be collected.
The tax administration carried out regular tax debt collection. It is known that in 2013 the Law on Conditional Write-Off of Interest and Suspension of Tax Debt was applied. On the basis of that law, about 400.000 taxpayers requested the reprogram, and about 130.000 of them fell out of the reprogram in 2013. In addition, many taxpayers, in accordance with the law, requested a postponement of the payment of the tax debt and for this they proposed a guarantee and the like.
When I was the director, we introduced "zero tolerance" for the payment of tax debt and did not differentiate between small or large taxpayers, that is, between private and public companies. They were all the same to us. Proof of this is the blocking of many large companies that were not blocked in the past, even though they owed taxes.
