Dnevni avaz: Right after the elections in October, it will come to increase of direct taxes and accisses in BiH, and this means the jump of price of cigarettes, coffee, alcohol, and oil of course, has been said for “Dnevni avaz” by the Deputy Minister for Finance of BiH, Fuad Kasumović. All this, according to his estimations, will not be enough to relieve the droop of revenues from customs on commodity from the European Union. He says that in July, when the customs was abolished for less than 10% of commodities from the EU, has been collected seven million KM, or 24% less than in July last year.
Direct taxes
From January 1st the customs will be abolished for more than 95% of commodities from the EU, and this will next year bring a deficit into the budget of about 120 million KM. Then it will be clear that increased accisses and direct taxes could not be able to stitch the gaps in budget, and already in March increase of the Value Added Tax will be needed from 17 to 20 or 21%. No matter how much would someone want to her this, but it is not true that the reason for tax increase is reduced custom revenues. The problem is in growth of public expenditures because increase of salaries in cantonal, entity and state institutions did not follow economic growth. Entities are competing with who will more increase the salaries of workers, and the state became a part of this competition as well – says Kasumović.
As he added, politicians do not want to talk about this topic because this conversation does not benefit them in their pre election campaign, while denying from the Administration for Indirect Taxation is a result of the fact that the new authority will be elected soon. He clearly says that the gaps in budget arose because the customs abolishment on products from the EU, and for the growth of public spending, or the salaries of civil servants, will be paid by citizens.
Theft from people
We will see again the well known system – theft from people. All this is shameful and unacceptable. This is an attack on poor citizens and economy of BiH. But at the end it will happen that citizens will be left without money, we will destroy the economy in its roots, and only those of us who work in the state bureaucracy will have regular salaries and enjoy in this country – Kasumović has said.
RS is not a better entity
Kasumović has noted how financial crisis is evident in the each part of BiH. In the Federation of BiH dominates the latent financial crisis, but the situation in the RS is actually worse, even if it looks better at first sight. Economical diagrams show that the Federation of BiH has better economic development from the RS because the Government of the RS fills the gaps in budget by money from the sold Telekom, Oil refinery, etc. What will Milorad Dodik use to fill the gaps once he has nothing more to sell – has been asked by Kasumović.