Among the parafiscal charges that burden enterprises the most, according to a survey conducted by HUP among 925 of its members, are a water management fee, for which enterprises paid a total of HRK 509 million in 2014, a membership fee payable to tourism boards (HRK 215 million) and a membership fee payable to the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HRK 144 million).
"We don't think that all these charges should be cancelled, but they should be considerably reduced and enterprises that do not benefit from them should be exempt from payment," HUP president Gordana Deranja said, adding that the Croatian economy would not be competitive as long as enterprises had to pay large sums of money for various charges and fees. She noted that the lack of transparency and irresponsible spending of funds raised from parafiscal charges was also a problem.
HUP officials also listed 11 "bizarre" charges which they said were unjustified and should be scrapped. Among them are fees for the issuing of various certificates and identification documents, a fee for registration stickers to mark fire extinguishers, a fee for testing fire extinguishing agents, and a fee for checking the completeness of documents in the process of amending decisions on the registration of plant protection agents.