Tax certificates just a click away

The certificate of paid taxes is one of the most sought for documents in Serbia. Taxpayers need to obtain them for more than 20 administrative procedures, be it the application for a loan, registration of employment record in the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, participation in a public procurement process, maternity leave, child allowance, verification of health insurance cards etc.

The Tax Administration issues more than 750,000 certificates a year, with numerous employees working on this task, while businesses are imposed costs reaching more than 2 million euros, observing the amount of paid taxes and the time spent visiting counters. 

An example of confusion that could be caused by the tax certificate procedure was the most evident in case of shutting down a business. In these situations, a business owner had to obtain a Tax Administration certificate and a local tax administration certificate. Since the documents' validity (of 5 days) was shorter than the deadline for their issuance (15 days), there were cases where one certificate expires before the other is obtained, which could put you in the center of a magic bureaucracy circle. 

The appeal for enabling electronic issuance of tax certificates has been one of the longest-lasting Grey Book recommendations (since 2009) and in March this year, the Tax Administration met the businesses' appeals. The tax certificate can now be obtained in a single click, so we can already say that one of the priority recommendations of the 11^th edition of Grey Book has been resolved. However, for no, it will be classified as partially resolved, since the two fees amounting to 620 RSD have remained in place. 

NALED also advocates the elimination of fees, since the largest part of work is now performed by a software, so the cost of service is certainly lower. In the next step, the authorities should consider the option of total elimination of tax certificates, bearing in mind that the state institutions are obliged to electronically exchange the data they manage.

The Tax Administration, along with Business Registers Agency, is a leader among state institutions in developing electronic services, most commonly creating them independently, hence we are convinced they will accept our recommendations and enable electronic issuance of tax certificates by local tax administration offices as well.