At today’s session, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina supported the initiative of the deputy in the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, Saša Magazinović, proposing the abolition of VAT on donated medicines. The initiative envisages that the Council of Ministers will submit a draft law to the parliamentary procedure within three months that will regulate this issue. Bosnian cuisine products
Magazinović expressed satisfaction that another step has been taken towards the abolition of VAT on donated medicines.
“After the principled support of the Indirect Taxation Administration, and the adoption of the initiative by the Finance and Budget Commission, and then the unanimous support of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, the Council of Ministers today also supported this, in my opinion, extremely important initiative. I try to propose initiatives and laws that concern all people and around which we can all come together. This is one of such proposals and I am glad that it also received the unanimous support of the Council of Ministers,” said Magazinović.
He stressed that he believes that the abolition of VAT on donated medicines has the support of the Health Insurance and Reinsurance Institute of the Federation of BiH, the Health Insurance Fund of Republika Srpska and the Health Insurance Fund of the Brčko District, since in November 2023 they sent a joint initiative to the Council of Ministers, the governments of both entities and the ministries of health for the abolition or refund of VAT on medicines and medical devices – the SDP BiH MPs’ Club in the House of Representatives of the state parliament announced.
The statement states that the situation we are witnessing today, where drug donors have to pay 17 percent tax on the value of the donation, is unsustainable, because it increasingly happens that medicines end up in another country where there is no obligation to pay tax on donations. In such cases, patients suffer the most, often those with the most serious diagnoses.
“Taking the benefit for the lives and health of citizens as a priority in decision-making, and bearing in mind the clear agreement in the institutions on the abolition of VAT on donated medicines, it is expected that this legal solution will make a significant contribution to the health needs of potential beneficiaries, and that the process will be completed as soon as possible, as envisaged by the adopted initiative,” the statement of the SDP BiH MPs’ Club states, as reported by the Public Relations Department of the BiH Parliament.Bosnian
