The Project ” Strengthening the Capacities of the Tax Administrations in BiH” that has been implemented by the Swedish Tax Agency with the support of the Swedish Embassy in BiH, in which the Tax Administration of the Republic of Srpska participates, could be extended after 2020 and expanded to other areas of importance for the work improvement of tax administrations in BiH, with the ultimate goal to transform them into modern, reliable and serviceable tax administrations.
It was emphasized after the meetings held in Banja Luka among representatives of Swedish Tax Agency, Swedish Embassy in BiH and Zora Vidovic, Minister of Finance of the Republic of Srpska, and her coworkers, and then with the representatives of the Tax Administration of the Republic of Srpska.
At these meetings, the interlocutors exchanged information about how the project implementation is going, on which members from all four tax administrations in BiH work together with experts from the Swedish Tax Agency, which is financed by the Swedish Embassy in BiH. Besides that, they spoke about the extension of duration of this project, as well as the introduction of new areas into the project in the future, in which representatives of tax administrations in BiH could further improve their knowledge and take the best practices from colleagues from Swedish Tax Agency.
Otherwise, it is planned that this project will last for three and a half years, i.e. until December 2020, and its total value is 26.500.000 Swedish crowns (BAM 5.4 million) and is financed by the Swedish Agency for International Development – SIDA. During 2015, experts from Swedish Tax Agency are, with the employees from all four tax administrations, identified key areas that are common for all four administrations in BiH and in which the improvement would like to be achieved. In that period, three priority areas have been identified on which specialized teams from Swedish Tax Agency and tax administrations in BiH will work separately, and those areas are:
- Change of Mindset of the Employees in the Tax Administration
- Taxpayer Service
- Compliance Risk Management
In the area of Change of Mindset of the Employees in the Tax Administrations, the improvement would like to be achieved in creation of trust between tax administration and taxpayer, as well as behavioral change of tax officers and strengthening of internal communication. When it comes to Taxpayer Service, the main aim of this area within the Project is improvement of communication with taxpayers through strategy services development with improvement of “Call Centre” function, implementation of prefilling possibilities of tax returns, i.e. „Prefilling” and similar. In the third priority area related to risk analysis, the improvement would like to be achieved in models with risks management in order to properly select taxpayers who don’t fulfill their liabilities on time, i.e. in the legally prescribed deadlines.
