State paying them for projects, and then „compensates“ with tax

State is paying state-owned institutes for projects for which it hires them, but scientific associates will have to renounce part of their salaries due to property tax, the “Novosti” daily report.

Unlike primary and secondary schools, as well as faculties that have been exempted from this levy, state-owned institutes located in business premises under state ownership must pay tax to state for which they work for with money that they do not have.

Ever since it was decided a decade and half ago that state-owned institutes should receive project funding via competition announced by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development there has been a problem with payment of property tax, since such expenditure is not included in funds that state directly pays to us, interlocutors of the “Novosti” daily employed in Belgrade based state-institutes have stipulated.

“These amounts were initially around RSD50,000 and we could still pay them at four annual instalments via reimbursement of material costs. However, since cities have been zoned and with introduction of extra zones the tax has drastically increased to several million dinars a year. We simply do not have money to pay for it.”

There are concrete cases of frozen treasury accounts of individual institutes, when scientists were left without salaries in order for state to settle a property tax.

The only reason for this is because fruit plantations that they own, as the institute in question is engaged in scientific research in field of biotechnical sciences, have been allocated from outskirts of the city in its urban zone. Subsequently, the tax has increased several times as well, interlocutors of the “Novosti” daily have stated.

As they point out, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools and faculties are exempted from payment of property tax, but „this should apply to all state-owned scientific and scientific-educational institutions that use state-owned property for housing and work.“

Izvor: Novosti

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