Contributions for unemployed paid by employers to be abolished in 2019 – Mali announces incentives for economy

Serbian Finance Minister Sinisa Mali announced that contributions for the unemployed paid by employers in the amount of 0.75% would be abolished from January 1, 2019, whereby the total income burden is reduced from 63% to 62%.

– We thereby send a message to business people and investors that we are striving for income burden to be as small possible, for us to be as competitive as possible and to thereby motivate new employments in Serbia – Mali said at a press conference.

By the end of October, he said, a new draft law on fees will be defined, under consent of the IMF, and certain parafiscal charges will be abolished as well.

The third measure pertains to increasing competitiveness. It is a new way of calculating the fixed assets tax depreciation, whereby the depreciation calculation will be accelerated.

– This aims to encourage and motivate investors to invest in fixed assets more from 2019, to procure new technologies and machines, in order to help the economy grow – the minister said and announced that the 2019 will feature public investments of RSD 208 billion, which is an all-time high and 25 billion more than in 2018.

Mali also announced incentives for innovative technologies, which will be defined by the end of October.

– In addition to incentives for the economy, we will also adopt a package of stimulating measures for innovative activities, which we will present in late October, and which will come into effect on January 1, 2019 – the minister announced.

He pointed out that the process of the modernization and the transformation of the Tax Administration, another priority, had started and that it was developing well.

– Representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Tax Administration have visited FPN Finances in Brussels in order to exchange experiences in the domain of fiscalization, and, next week, they will visit Slovakia in order to learn about the experiences there – Mali said and added that a reform of the entire tax system would be carried out.

The minister pointed out that the majority of what's envisaged in the program that Serbia signed with the IMF had been initiated and noted that, in addition to resolving the status of RTB Bor, the successful privatization of PKB was also important.

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Međunarodni monetarni fond-MMF Beograd

Poreska uprava Srbije

Serbia Zijin Copper doo Bor

PKB Korporacija a.d. Beograd

Ministry of Finance

International Monetary Fund

IMF

Tax Administration

FPN Finances

RTB Bor

PKB

contributions for the unemployed

income burden

income tax

law on fees

parafiscal charges

fixed assets tax depreciation

public investments 2019

innovative technologies

innovations

fiscalization

reform of tax system

Sinisa Mali

abolition of contributions for the unemployed paid by employers

new calculation of fixed assets tax depreciation

incentives for innovative technologies