Tax collectors to start controlling late payments

Beginning with Monday, June 13, 2016, tax collectors will be supervising the enforcement of the Law on Late Payments in Commercial Transactions between business entities, according to the findings by Nova Ekonomija.

From 2013, this was the job of the Ministry of Finance, which was not very successful at it. According to the new Ordinance which has recently been signed by the Minister of Finance Dusan Vujovic, the Tax Administration will be obliged to initiate offense proceedings in the cases where the public sector is late with payments. The law itself prescribes urgent procedures by courts in such cases.

The law from 2013 prescribes that each transaction in which one of the sides is a public sector entity, including self-governments and public enterprises shall discharge its obligations within 60 days. The exception is the National Health Insurance Fund, for which the deadline was 90 days.

In the period immediately following the passing of the Law, the then Minister of Finance and Economy Mladjan Dinkic blocked the entities from the public sector who didn’t discharge their obligations on time. However, the supervision which was officially carried out by the Ministry of Finance soon stopped, and today, in most cases, the legal deadlines for paying for goods and services are no longer honored.