The negotiations were successfully completed on Thursday, after which a State Secretary at the Finance Ministry, Ante Zigman, and World Bank team leader Waleed Haider Malik signed the Agreed Minutes of Negotiations.
The main priority of the World Bank's Country Assistance Strategy for Croatia is to support the Government's efforts to achieve successful integration into the European Union. Modernization of the revenue administration aims to provide Croatia with the means of assisting fiscal sustainability, reducing administrative burden on tax payers by removing structural and institutional weaknesses, and creating tax administration capacity necessary for successful EU accession.
In this light, the main objective of the Revenue Administration Modernization Project is to assist the Government in making the Croatian Tax Administration a more efficient, effective, transparent and accountable institution, the World Bank Office said in a statement.
"The activities to be implemented under the project include the consolidation and functional realignment of tax offices in the City of Zagreb, upgrading and strengthening the large taxpayer office, strengthening the Tax Administration human resources management function, establishment of the Tax Academy, training of employees and taxpayers, as well as technological upgrading of the Tax Administration ICT system, including providing support for the implementation of the taxpayer identification number," stated Zigman.
"The Revenue Administration Modernization Project will provide support for the implementation of the taxpayer identification number, given that the Tax Administration is in the final stages of drafting the law on the taxpayer identification number. The project will also support an analysis of the links to other registers, introduction of the taxpayer identification number into all other registers and its assignment to taxpayers," said Ivica Mladineo, Director of the Tax Administration Office.
The implementation of the tax identification number will also set the base for improving the targeting of social benefit programs, the reform area recently identified by the Government in the Social Benefit Reform Strategy, said Sanja Madzarević-Sujster, World Bank Acting Country Manager for Croatia.
The Revenue Administration Modernization Project will comprise four inter-related components.
The first component is organizational consolidation and functional realignment of the Tax Administration tax offices and it aims to improve tax compliance, efficiency and services to taxpayers through the organizational restructuring of the City of Zagreb network of 13 city locations and their consolidation into a new tax office complex; as well as through the strengthening of Large Tax Payers" offices.
The second component is knowledge and professional upgrading of tax officials and stakeholders, and it aims to strengthen the professionalism, competence and integrity of tax officials and the knowledge of taxpayers and other stakeholders through training provision and establishment of a Tax Academy.
The third component is the technological upgrading of services, management information system and tax identification number implementation support, and the fourth component refers to modernization management and project support.