ZAGREB, Oct 31 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Thursday formulated a bill envisaging one-off taxation of property acquired through the evasion of tax obligations and use of various benefits, i.e. property acquired illegally in the
process of ownership transformation and privatisation, transactions with the state and units of local administration or companies owned by them.
ZAGREB, Oct 31 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Thursday
formulated a bill envisaging one-off taxation of property acquired
through the evasion of tax obligations and use of various benefits,
i.e. property acquired illegally in the process of ownership
transformation and privatisation, transactions with the state and
units of local administration or companies owned by them. #L#
The Croatian Privatisation Fund, the State Audit Office, bodies of
state and local administration, and legal persons with public
authorities will be obliged to provide information on facts
regarding the initiating of procedures to determine one-off
taxes.
The bill regulates the establishment of the tax base to consist of
the value of property on December 31 this year, and determines
progressive tax rates.
A one-off tax rate of 35 percent would be applied to the tax base of
400,000-600,000 kuna, while amounts exceeding 1.4 million kuna
would be taxed according to an 80% tax rate.
The decision on initiating procedures to establish one-off taxes
would be adopted by the Tax Administration. It has also been
suggested as an alternative that this be done by a commission
appointed by the government.
The procedure itself would start with the handing of an order, which
would imply the obligation to submit a declaration of assets. The
declaration would have to contain information on every piece of
real estate, movable assets (planes, ships, valuable objects),
money on accounts, shares, bonds and other securities, financial
and other claims towards physical and legal persons, etc.
In order to ensure the collection of taxes, the Tax Administration
will adopt a decision providing temporarily for their collection,
and it may impose a ban on selling or mortgaging real estate, or
forbid the bank or legal person performing financial transactions
to make payments from the tax-payer's account.
The government has forwarded into urgent parliamentary procedure
changes to the Law on the Audit of Ownership Transformation and
Privatisation extending the deadline for the completion of audits
from January 2003 to January 2005.
(hina) rml sb