Goran Maričić, director of the Tax Administration of the Republic of Srpska, participated today at the panel “Tax Administration Reform and Fight Against the Gray Economy”, as part of the eighth “Summit of the Governors, Ministers of Finance and Directors of Tax Administrations of the Region”, which was held on 13-15 June 2019 in Bečići, Montenegro.
In addition to the director Maričić, the participants in this panel were also the directors of Tax Administration of the Federation BiH, the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, then the Assistant Director of the Tax Administration of Serbia, directors of tax administrations of Montenegro, Croatia, North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo * as well as the Advisor to the International Monetary Fund for the Western Balkans.
Participants within this panel talked about several topics in this area, and so there were words about the reform and modernization of tax administrations of the region, i.e. what are the ways to help each other on this path of reform and modernization. Likewise, challenges imposed on the tax administrations by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as well as electronic filling and tax collection and measures to increase tax administrations efficiency were discussed. In addition, the key persons of tax administrations of the region also discussed stronger regional cooperation in the fight against the grey economy, the importance of tax administrations for the stabilization of public finances, as well as better collection of public revenues as a condition for reducing the tax burden. They discussed about significance of the reform of public companies for tax administration, the tax treatment of excise products, but also unavoidable and very important topic today, which has been referred to, and it is how to improve the relationship between the tax administration and taxpayers, i.e. to strive education before sanctions.
While talking about the achievements of the Tax Administration of the Republic of Srpska, the director Maričić stated that the digitization of business processes is important for today’s business, with the aim of strengthening taxpayer services and simplifying procedures. He announced that electronic filling of all tax returns would be enabled by the end of this year, as well as the functioning of the e-Box, which, along with the automation of the process of sending notifications on filing tax returns and payment of tax liabilities, is a major step forward for this institution in the area of digitization.
Maričić also said that regional cooperation of control bodies is very important in the fight against the gray economy, which should certainly be tackled, and pointed out that the fight against the gray economy is not based only on prohibitions and inspection measures, but also implies different activities of the wider community.
