Since the beginning of the year, more than RSD 7 billion of taxes evaded, twice as many phantom companies

In the first six months of 2021, the tax authorities in Serbia discovered about 7.3 billion dinars of evaded tax, said the coordinator of the Tax Police, Ivan Ivanovic.

„That is about 26 percent more than in the same period last year,“ Ivanovic added.

According to RTS TV, in the same period, twice as many so-called „phantom companies“ were discovered, and the tax police arrested 72 people due to tax fraud.

Along with phantom companies and money laundering companies, which are established to evade paying taxes, the discovery of those that were established in order to exercise the right to a VAT refund is a complete novelty for inspectors, RTS TV reports. Three of them, organized by the owner of a bookkeeping agency in Cuprija, got 10 million dinars from the state budget in a year.

„Every month, they submitted fictitious VAT returns made by the owner of a bookkeeping agency and, based on the false content in those tax returns, they demanded a VAT refund. The money from the VAT refund was handed over to the bookkeeping agency owner,“ said Ivan Ivanovic, Tax Police coordinator.

In the first half of the year, 656 criminal charges were filed for over 900 criminal offenses related to tax collection.

Izvor: Beta, RTS

Foto: BIZLife