The Council of foreign investors (CFI) has invited the state and entity leaders to solve the problem of double taxation by taxes on profit which continues to remain one of the main barriers for companies having businesses in the whole country.
Several members of the CFI, registered in the FBiH, in previous years have been responding to their obligations on the basis of taxes on profit to the Federal Tax Administration Office.
The Tax Administration Office of the District of Brčko has decided to ignore existing regulations of the FBiH in the area of taxation and it enforced paying the same tax on profit for the previous three years on the basis of achieved profits on the territory of the District of Brčko. The Tax Administration Office of the District of Brčko has not only miscalculated and specified the amount of the tax, but it also ignored the existing and accountancy laws, International Financial Reporting Standards and ignored the fact that the companies have already fulfilled their obligations in the FBiH.
Discussion between the representatives of the Tax Administration Office and companies in a sense of delivering the facts and complaints, through official institutions or associations, has been happening over a year.
Since one of the companies has officially refused to make a payment, the Tax Administration Office of Brčko has blocked the accounts of that company and it came to those funds by the forced charge.
“This is a unique example that illustrates how disharmony of work of institutions between the entities and the District of Brčko and disharmony of legislation disturbs directly the businesses of companies and distracts the foreign investments in the country”, has been stated in the announcement of the CFI.
It is not only that the legislation has been ignored, but from the other side there are no institutions on any level of the government which has offered the solution for an obvious example of double taxation. In the past months many companies and business associations have expressed concern about this issue. They had an open dialog with different institutions and government leaders, but this problem still remains unsolved.
Obviously, such moves are encouraging neither foreign nor domestic investors and they bring risk to the current and future investments in the country.
The current situation is unacceptable and it significantly reduces attractiveness of the BiH economy. Disharmony of the legislation in our country is a special story all by it self.
“One more significant thing that jeopardizes the situation, is the fact that not any level of the state or entity government does show the interest to solve this problem”, says Alexander Zsolnai, member of the Administrative Board of the Council of Foreign Investors.
Delegation of the CFI has yesterday had a very productive meeting with the delegation of the OHR leaded by Raffi Gregorian, Prinicipal Deputy of the High Representative and the Supervisor for Brčko on which this topic has been presented and discussed.
The representatives of the OHR and CFI have agreed that the question of double taxation needs to be solved in the interest of all BiH citizens and all investors which invest or plan to invest in Bosnia and Herzegovina.