BIJELJINA, Izbacivanje fiskalnih kasa u zanatstvu olakšaće rad preduzetnika i otvoriti prostor za novo samozapošljavanje i zapošljavanje u Republici Srpskoj, izjavio je sekretar udruženja “Preduzetnik” u Bijeljini Milorad Stević.
On očekuje da će najavljene mjere Vlade o kojima se intenzivno razgovara biti provedene već za mjesec dana i ocjenjuje da je to za preduzetnike očekivana, ali vrlo radosna vijest.
Stević smatra da fiskalne kase treba ukinuti za sve zanatske djelatnosti u Republici Srpskoj, kako je to urađeno u Srbiji.
Prema njegovim riječima, očekuje se da će u trgovačkim i ugostiteljskim radnjama, gdje se fiskalne kase zadržavaju, olakšice biti uvedene kroz mjere kao što su ukidanje obaveznog tehničkog pregleda kasa jednom godišnje i skraćenje roka čuvanja fiskalne dokumentacije sa tri na jednu godinu.
Stević kaže da je od uvođenja fiskalizacije 2008. godine broj zanatsko-preduzetničkih radnji samo u Bijeljini pao sa nekadašnjih 3.200 na sadašnjih manje od 1.900 radnji.
“Mali preduzetnici nisu izdržali teret fiskalizacije, a gašenje hiljada radnji dovelo je do gubljenja više hiljada radnih mjesta od kojih su zavisile cijele porodice u gradu”, naglasio je Stević.
On je istakao da je preuzetništvo najbrži, najsigurniji i najefikasniji put za izlazak iz ekonomske krize i za rješavanje najvećeg problema – nezaposlenosti kroz projekte samozapošljavanja.
Preduzetnička zajednica u Bijeljini, sa oko 1.900 radnji, je nakon Banjaluke druga po snazi preduzetnička zajednica u Republici Srpskoj. Srna
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Dear Mr Ivanic,
Please allow me to write in English to avoid mistakes in my Serbian language. I’m Dutch but living already for about 7 years in Banja Luka, Branislav Borenovic knows me quite well from his working period with IFOR-SFOR. I have my own healthy firm Eko Energija d.o.o. in Banja Luka (Kosmos facilities) and we are doing very well given the international crisis. Our main target countries are the Balkan but due to a lack of investment possibilities currently the majority of our work we perform in Italy. We, my wife, our children and I are building a house in “Gornji Prijecani so we are quite close to your weekend house.
I have been reading the story in Vecernje Novosti and I like to make some comments/remarks on it. I have the possibility to do this on the website in public but in my opinion this direct way is better and it might start a healthy discussion
For reading reasons I’ll keep the same sequence like in the article so I believe it is easy to follow.
I’m not exactly up to date with the total “working force” in RS but a rough 17% of the total population is basically an impossible figure. Not one single country will be able to survive this number for more than 2 years so something is wrong in the measurements made by the government or the figures are not accurate due to false information. Even when we add the administration employees to these figures with 24% in total we still end up short for about 16-20% of working force for a country to be able to survive. So one of the most important things is to get clear and clean figures. With living for about 7 years in Banja Luka and having my own firm from the beginning I see clearly that about 60% of the firms in RS are employing people without being registered as employees and not paying taxes and social insurances for those people. This varies from small firms to major companies but basically almost all firms do this. This has several reasons: The “tax pressure on wages/salaries” is way too high, in RS this is about 68%, in other words my employees get 1.000KM netto per month and this costs me 1.680KM per employee. In the Netherlands this is just 30% meaning that using the same formula the same employee will cost just 1.300KM. I understand that standards are different in Western Europe but still the tax and social insurance pressure in RS is too high compared to other countries. This needs to be solved. (Later on I shall explain how). Related to the administrative part of the government, with having a big administration these employees are a “guaranteed” vote for politicians which are in charge, in the case of RS this means that about 25-30% of votes are more or less guaranteed by keeping up a big administration. A big administration works contra productive for firms and enterprises because of an increase in laws, regulations and governmental influence on the primary tasks of firms and enterprises: “Making profit and expanding their business.” (This I will explain later on as well). The same principal goes for government owned firms where I basically see a way too big overhead of staff against a small number of employees which are actually doing the work in the field. This overhead of staff is simply due to too many laws and regulations both in the work field but in the financial/tax related field as well. The situation with guest workers abroad is a major problem for RS. These people pay taxes in other countries but continue to use RS facilities etc. It is my estimation that this costs RS at least 5-8% of its budget. What I see around us in for instance Banja Luka but I believe it is the same in every city is a large amount of “kucni majstora car repairshops and others working directly for clients” of which almost nobody pays any taxes or social insurances but they charge clients about 80KM to 100KM per day of work. Estimating 20 working days a month this is an income of approximately 1.800KM with no taxes or social insurances paid. My estimation is that only in Banja Luka there are about 2.000 of these people/firms
I partly disagree on the subject about the highway Prnjavor Doboj, the oil drillings and the energy sector.
It is not bad to build highways but building such big infrastructural projects must have a target, the highway by itself can never be a target on its own because in that case it is just a waste of money. So, either a highway is absolutely necessary because other roads cannot handle the traffic due to large amounts of cars and trucks or the highway is a necessary investment to improve the economy of a region by providing better infrastructure for already active or planned industries in the area where the highway is planned. In case of this highway neither one of these 2 options is the case. There is pressure on traffic on the existing road but there are no indications that this will increase since there are no major industries which will use the new highway planned in this area. Basically this means that this whole project without a thought about future investments in industry is a waste of money and it looks more like an “ego” project than a very good and calculated plan.
The energy sector. I have an old saying which I use quite a lot: “What you sell you doesn’t longer have”. It happened with Mtel, with Modrica and we see the results of that daily in the news. So selling strategic industries should be reconsidered several times and should be visually liable for the public. I don’t see a problem in liberation of the energy sector though, in other words open up the production side and allow others than Elektro Krajina, EPHZHB or EPBiH to produce energy for both households and for the industrial sector. This will improve investments in this sector, it will improve reliability of the energy network and it will improve employability. One thing is a problem with this though: At the moment EP’s are producing for a too low price and that keeps them always in a “non-profitable” situation. It is a very difficult theme to raise but realistically seen the average selling price of convential electrical energy (without taxes, VAT etc.) should be somewhere around 8-8,5 Eurocent per kWh, for renewables like wind energy this should be increased to 9,5-10 Eurocent to attract investments in this sector. In the long term when everything is calculated (amortization, maintenance, renovation, new production units, grid maintenance on power lines, building new power lines, increasing transformer stations etc. etc.) below that price it is impossible to have a healthy energy producing sector. The illusion that a hydro central like Bocac can produce electricity for 3 Eurocents per kWh is already long, long gone, Norway is a good example of this where the cost price of electric energy by hydro is between 9.5 and 11.5 Eurocent.
I disagree on the thoughts about the thermal central in Ugljevik. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a renewable energy man so I don’t like coal or other thermal centrals at all. The thing is that I cannot agree with the statement about the export of energy and that it is not viable for RS in a financial way. Every macro economist knows that export is crucial for a country to increase its financial situation. It basically does not matter what you export, it can be services, agricultural products, industry products, energy, water anything can do as long as it is done in a sustainable manner. At the moment export of RS is a fraction of the total import which means that the situation is not sustainable and a long, long way from being financially viable for the country, this means that every intention of exporting should be supported as much as possible. Export simply means that foreign money flows into the country and that increases the financial position of the country. At the moment it is the other way around, industries or firms which export are being punished by the Chamber of Commerce by having to pay an increased donation to this Chamber of Commerce. This is a very strange situation and not healthy for the industry in RS at all. That an energy producing firm is in private hands does not make a difference on that, basically it is the same like any other firm producing goods for export. The statement that RS does not have any profit out of this because of 0% VAT does not hold either. All directly and indirectly involved firms, services, suppliers, mining industry etc. etc., pay taxes and VAT on this project so the actual influence is bigger than stated and this should all be taken into account. The firms pay taxes on profit and in case this profit is paid like dividend taxes are double (10% ea 20%). On the other hand VAT is when looking at firms a minor part of the taxes, for end users this is different, that VAT goes with its full 17% into the government. It is quite simple: A firm buys his goods, pays VAT on that, buys machines and auxiliary goods, pays VAT on that employs workers pays tax and social insurances for them. Below I’ll try to describe a fictive situation, to keep it simple we will just use 1KM as a starting point:
The cost price of producing a product is 1KM 17% VAT makes 1.17KM. Work costs 0.10KM (of which 68% is taxes and social insurances which flow back to RS), machines cost 0.10KM, insurances etc. cost 0.05KM making total costs of the produced product 1.42KM, 15% profit is a decent marge on the product so the product is sold for 1.63 KM plus VAT which is 0.28KM. 0.28-0.17KM=0.10KM which flows into government this is just 6% of the total price. This means that the direct influence of VAT is not as big as expected and cannot compete with taxes on profit or dividend as described above. VAT is a good system in countries with a big internal market and low imports. RS has a small internal market high imports and low exports so the effect of VAT is a lot less compared with Western European countries. It is a reality check to research the net effect of VAT on the economy of RS government and to see that it is a viable system or that the cost are simply too high to keep this system operating.
Andricgrad; totally agree.
IRB and the banking system; I agree with you, but RS has much bigger problems, not only with the IRB but with the complete banking system of RS. The system and policy of the banks is that it is basically impossible for a true idea of a company to get a credit line or loan except when you are good friends with the director of the bank. On the other side RS has a completely wrong system of “guarantor” of which RS government has neither control nor overview. Personally, I saw that one guarantor is guarantor for more than 10 loans, totaling 75.000km and the guarantor does not have a monthly income of 800KM and no real estate at all. RS urgently needs to arrange a system of “registration of credits and loan guarantors” which is independent of the banks and political influence. In Germany and the Netherlands there is a “Bureau of Credit Registration” that office registers all credits and loans including mortgages of persons and firms. In case somebody wants a new loan or to increase the present loan the bank first has to receive green light from that bureau. When you have a loan and want a second one then the first loan must be included in the new loan neither can they have loans with several institutions. This is a solution where it is no longer possible that people or companies lie about their loans, and therefore the risk for banks will be much less and with such a system there is no longer a need for guarantors. This is an indirect boost for the economy because the loss of banks gets reduced by about 30%. The banking system in the RS is designed in such a way that a normal company does not have a real opportunity to get a loan or credit line; everything is going according to a system of nepotism where you have to be either good friends with the director of a bank or with a powerful politician. It is my estimation that this has at least a 25% negative effect on RS economy.
Solutions
Fiscalization did not lead to a smaller “black” market in RS. All people/firms who are directly servicing clients with works (not goods) can still stay out of the fiscalization system. So control and inspection in this sector has to be increased by RS government. This will improve tax and social insurance income by at least 5%.
The fines for economical fraud are too small at the moment and should be increased considerably to have a preventive result. In the Netherlands for instance an economical fraud is punished heavier than killing a person. The killing of a person influences only a few people; an economical fraud influences a complete country. Tax fraud in the Netherlands has a minimum punishment of the fraud itself plus a fine with the height of the fraud plus a prison sentence of at least 1 year. This works very preventive and will improve the tax income of RS directly and indirectly.
Inspection of “working sites” should be increased considerably an employer should at any given time be able to provide tax inspectors with a complete list of employees and tax registration of these employees. At the moment at least 20% of employees on working sites are not registered and this costs the government a considerable amount of taxes and social insurances.
Organizing of cartels should be punished very hard; it is of the interest of the people that they get the best price possible. A good example is the building industry in Banja Luka. Where the real cost of building apartments is about 800-900KM per square meter the selling prices are Banja Luka wide above 1.600KM plus VAT. This means that with a certainty of 99% the building firms made price agreements amongst each other. This is an economical fraud and should be punished like described above.
Tax and social insurance pressure on wages should be decreased to below 50% in total of the net salary (currently 68%). There is a very good solution for this which will positively influence the economy of RS both directly and indirectly; Increase the minimum wages and agree with the social syndicates for an increasing of wages on a yearly base with at least the inflation number. This solution can be budget neutral in the short term and will be positive for the budget in the medium and long term. Besides this it will increase the monthly income of people meaning they have more money to spend and this will influence VAT income of the government. Lowering salary pressure will positively influence employability meaning less costs for social support etc. etc.
Lowering governmental laws and rulings for firms will lower the administrative pressure and this will increase the will of firms to expand. At the moment any initiative is almost immediately slowed down or stopped by impossible laws and rulings of the government both on local and on RS level. A good example is small hydro centrals and/or wind energy projects. To get a project up and running a firm needs to write 36-38 requests to a number of governmental bodies. In the Netherlands and Germany this only needs 3 requests where the government itself takes care of informing all relevant bodies. For a lot of projects in the complete industrial sector the complicated administrational legislation makes it necessary to use consultants which basically don’t carry any risk and only increase the costs of projects. Lowering legislation will improve willingness to invest by firms and this will have a direct influence on governmental income. Besides this it will lower the need for a large amount of employees in the governmental administration and this will lower budget costs considerably.
All “guest workers” and people visiting RS are using facilities like roads, highways and public services without paying for this. It is worth considering starting using a “road vignette” like in Austria and Slovenia. This will give a positive result for the budget and when keeping the price of this reasonable it will not influence traffic into RS. With using the right organization of this it can be even budget neutral for people normally living in RS. It is quite simple to calculate to costs and the income out of this since we know exactly how many cars are travelling into RS every day.
The banking system and system of loans and credit lines should be reorganized as described above. This will increase possibilities and will lower costs and unwillingness of banks. In any case all major employees including chairmen’s of the boards should be politically neutral/independent to avoid any possibility of nepotism and/or fraud.
Export and the production of export goods should be promoted as much as possible. Firms which are exporting goods and/or services of any kind should be rewarded instead of punished for this. Along with this the custom administrations system should be reorganized to lower administrative burden of exporting goods to other countries. Temporary importing goods is a very complicated and costly process in which only perseverance gives results. This process should be simplified and the customs and tax department should not ask for a reservation guarantee on VAT for these goods. It is quite simple, the importer needs to give proof of the whereabouts of these goods at all times and in case temporary import exceeds the time as per the permit the importer will have to pay VAT on the goods. The combination of the above will increase economy and employability.
Conclusion:
It is not as complicated as it looks. At the moment good and trustworthy firms are victimized by an administrative system which is arranged for the firms who are fraudulent, in other words it is based on symptoms and not on prevention. The solution for this is higher penalties ( a lot higher) for fraudulent firms and persons and less administrative regulations and influence by the government. One important condition for this is that all prosecutors and judges must be of absolutely clean behavior and cannot have any ties with political parties or governmental bodies.
Political:
I’m not involved with any political party or side and I don’t have any intention to be involved but: Economy must drive politics and not like it is now that politics drive economy. The government has a task and responsibility to provide the possibility of economic expanding and not slowing it down after all the government must be there for the people the people are not there for the government.
Ne košta ništa da se ovo pismo prevede i postavi na portal kao autorski članak, jer je i potpisano. A da je čovjek dobro napisao, jeste.
Grat thoughts!
Gospodine Rakovicu,
Slazemo se sa vašom ocjenom.
Pročitali smo tekst. Dobar je.
Poslali smo ga na prevod i objavicemo ga.
Hvala na sugestiji.
Redakcija