BRATISLAVA, April 6, (WEBNOVINY) — The Finance Ministry has prepared a series of bills through which the tax and customs administration is to be reformed and the collection of taxes, customs duties, and health and social insurance contributions unified. The first out of three bills, which the ministry has already submitted for interdepartmental review, is the draft on state administration bodies active in the area of taxes, fees, and customs. The first phase of the reform is to be carried out via this draft bill, namely by merging the tax and customs administration on the level of directorates, by formation of a new Financial Directorate of the Slovak Republic. The law should take effect on January 1, 2012.
The draft defines a system of state administration bodies operating in the area of taxes, fees and customs, in line with the reform of the tax and customs administration. These bodies include the Finance Ministry, Financial Directorate, tax offices, customs offices, and the Criminal Office of the Financial Administration.
The concept of the tax and customs administration reform with the objective to unify the collection of taxes, customs duties, and health and social insurance contributions was approved by previous government of Robert Fico in May 2008.
The current management of the Finance Ministry has elaborated also a draft amendment to the law on tax administration, which revises rules applying to individual kinds of taxes. The bill should take effect as of next year, too. The third piece of legislation is the draft bill on financial administration and on the powers of the Finance Ministry in the area of financial administration. The bill is to implement the second phase of the reform via a complete merger of the tax and customs administration and creation of a structure of financial administration.
SITA
