(Official Gazette, n. 80/2002, 84/2002 – 23/2003 – 70/2003, 55/2004, 61/2005, 85/2005 – federal law 62/2006 – federal law 63/2006 – federal law 61/2007, 20/2009, 72/2009 -federal law, 53/2010, 101/2011, 2/2012 – i93/2012, 47/2013, 108/2013, 68/2014, 105/2014, 91/2015)

The Amendments to the Tax Procedure Law were adopted by the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia on the on the 19th April 2018, entering into force on the 28th April 2018, except that the provisions governing the activities of tax audits and providing tax services will be applied on the 1st January 2019.

1. Amendments expanded the responsibility of the natural persons and the persons responsible for the calculation and payment of tax. The existence of secondary tax liabilities involves responsibility for the calculation and payment of taxes, provided in cases where persons act without due care. In terms of Tax Procedure Law, secondary tax liability arises when a person is responsible for a due tax liability of another taxpayer or due secondary tax liability of another taxpayer.
2. The provisions relating to the VAT refund provides that the amount of refund is reduced by the amount of other tax debts of the taxpayer (for any type of tax).
3. The Law expands possibility of Tax Administration to demand delivery of available information and data relevant for taking action within its jurisdiction to other entities (companies, private individuals, banks, government agencies, etc).
4. The duties of taxpayers to file an amended tax return, until the expiration of statute of limitations, were further specified, especially in the case when it is considered that the submitted tax return contains an error and the error has resulted in incorrect determination of the amount of tax liability. Therefore, such amended tax return cannot be filed in case tax police has started taking actions with the purpose of detecting tax frauds.
5. New provisions are introduced into the system for filing tax returns and notifying the taxpayers by the Tax Administration. Taxpayers will be able to file the property tax return electronically, as of 1st January 2019. It is also provided an e-mail or SMS reminders by the Tax Administration, in order to settle tax debts before sending a warning to the taxpayer.
6. Article 76 provides the possibility of write-off of 50% of penalty interest for taxpayer which has been granted a deferral of payment of tax debt, has been amended so that the write-off is not available in case the tax debt was assessed in a tax audit.
7. Amendments predicted new responsibilities of the Tax Administration. It was determined that the Tax Authorities provide tax services which, inter alia, include the provision of legal assistance to the taxpayer(article 71). The term “tax audit procedure” includes desk and field control, and now these integrated activities are subjects of unified rules.
8. As of 1st January 2019, Tax Authority will no longer be authorized to issue licenses for foreign exchange transactions and they will not be authorized to supervise them. Jurisdiction of foreign exchange transactions will be taken over by the National bank of Serbia (article 129).
9. Regarding the filling of a request for initiation of criminal or offense procedures, amendments treat the case when the tax inspector, in the process of tax controls, detect some irregularities. Tax inspector will either file a request for the initiation of offense procedure or will file a report to the tax police on reasonable doubt that a tax fraud might have been committed. If the report is filed to the tax police, the tax inspector will not file the request for initiation of the offense procedure. Such request will be filed by the public prosecutor, if required (article 137).
10. According to article 45,the taxpayer is obliged to inform the Tax Authority on all important data which are not filed at the Serbian Business Registers Agency, including data on all business premises in which the taxpayer stores goods or performs business activities, unless such data has already been provided to the Tax Authority. For a legal entity that does not provide such data to the Tax Authority, amendments set the offense liability and penalties, ranging from 100.000 to 2.000.000 dinars.
11. Furthermore, changes to the Tax Procedure Law provide grounds for establishing unified information system of the local tax administrations, which would contain data relevant for assessing property tax and other public charges, as well as data on collection of such revenues (article 65) . The purpose is to unify the work and increase the effectiveness by doing the administrative work electronically. It is expected that the unified information system will be set up as of 1st January 2019, as of which date the local tax administrations will be obliged to connect with that system. The Tax Authority will take over the running of the unified information system at the latest as of 1st January 2020.