By Medina Malagić – Sarajevo

The list is long, and the amount owed is high. The B&H Indirect Taxation Authority has published on its website the entire list of companies that owe indirect taxes, making this information available to the public.

This list was published as a result of an amendment to the Law on Indirect Taxation Procedure that entered into force today, and includes a list of companies that owe the highest taxes in indirect taxes (VAT), excise and customs taxes. The Indirect Taxation Authority issued a call to these companies in November, before the amendment entered into force today, urging them to pay their dues if they do not wish to be found on the list.

The number of companies that owe taxes are 9.089, totaling 296 million BAM in the amount owed by debtors to the state. The list contains the names of the companies that owe the highest amount of taxes, more specifically 25,000 BAM and more, said the Spokesperson of the B&H Indirect Taxation Authority Ranko Kovačević.

According to Spokesperson Kovačević, he asserted that the announcement that the list of those companies that owe taxes would be made public served as an incentive for payments, since during this period around 10 million BAM in debts has already been paid.

”We will use all the legal rights to obtain the payment of the 296 million BAM debt”, said Kovačević. He also said that the Indirect Taxation Authority made contracts on the reprogramming of debts in the amount of 70 million BAM with 76 taxpayers.

However, there have also been disagreements over whether the public announcment of these companies that owe taxes would actually serve as an incentive to pay the debt. According to some politicians, the Indirect Taxation Authority has already known the names of these companies and possessed the legal mechanisms necessary to collect the debt. In addition, there is the claim that an analysis of the list has to be made in order to ascertain whether some companies on the list enjoyed certain priviledges by the Indirect Taxation Authority, which would show whether all companies in B&H are equal before the law. This was announced by Deputy of the SDP party in the RS National Assembly Slobodan Popović. He blames the state for not doing its job in collecting taxes and contributes the neglect of the state for the current economic crisis.

The B&H Indirect Taxation Authority has already filed a report against some of the companies to the B&H Prosecutor’s Office on the basis of violating the law regarding indirect taxes, which led to damaging the budget of B&H by around 160 million BAM.

The company that owes the most in indirect taxes is “MB – Kekerović” from Laktaši (located near Banja Luka) with 9,1 million BAM. Based on the excise tax, the largest companies that owe taxes are ‘Bob-Pro’ from Čitluk at 7,5 million BAM, followed by ‘Sarajevska Pivara’ (Sarajevo Brewery) at 3 million BAM.