BRATISLAVA, April 14, (WEBNOVINY) — Draft bills that the Finance Ministry has prepared to reform the tax and customs administration and gradually introduce the unified collection of taxes, customs duties, and payroll levies has encountered resistance of some other departments and employers’ associations. They have submitted 207 fundamental comments to the three draft bills enacting the reform within the finished interdepartmental review.
The first of the series of bills is the draft on state administration organs in the field of taxes, customs duties, and payroll levies. This bill was shaped to implement the first phase of the reform, which should be finalized with the merger of the tax and customs administration at the level of directorates via the establishment of the new Financial Authority of the Slovak Republic. In one of its crucial comments, the Labor Ministry demands the Finance Ministry to revamp the draft and submit it again to preliminary and interdepartmental reviews. The ministry argues that the wording of the draft is not in line with the intentions of the concept of the reform of the tax and customs administration and the outlook of the unification of the taxes, customs duties, and social insurance premiums collection. The draft only cancels the first level of tax organs and the customs administration, i.e. the Tax Directorate ad the Customs Directorate and merges them into the Financial Authority of the Slovak Republic. The ministry says that all other things do not differ from the situation defined in the currently valid laws.
The Labor Ministry has a similar opinion on the draft bill on financial administration and the jurisdiction of the Finance Ministry in the field of financial administration. It does not agree with the proposed wording of the draft since it fails to resolve the complex status, organization, jurisdiction and operation of the organs of state administration in the areas of taxes, fees, customs and social and health insurance payments. The ministry thus proposes to withdraw the draft from the legislative procedure and elaborate a new and complex draft.
The ministry has reservations also towards the third of the bills, which is the draft amendment to the law on tax administration, which also alters regulations for individual kinds of taxes. The ministry argues that the amendment is not harmonized with the objectives of the reform while also deadline are not synchronized.
The UNITAS project, a gradual unification of collection of taxes and customs duties, and later also of social and health insurance premiums, was approved by the previous government in May 2008. The project aims at centralization of control and administration of taxes, customs duties, and payroll levies to make the collection more efficient.
The merger of tax and customs administrations is planned for January 1, 2013. Prior to this, the tax administration must implement reforms and the process should be completed by early 2012 so that the concerned authorities will have time to prepare for the change.
SITA
