A transparent and efficient system of implementing the amendment to the VAT Act, in connection with the exemption of food donations from paying VAT, will ensure that food reaches those who need it most. With the aim of establishing a system for applying the amendment to the VAT Act, a working meeting was held organized by the Mozaik Foundation and partners gathered around the initiative “Nobody Hungry. Nobody Alone” funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) within the “Legal Framework for Philanthropy” program.
Muharem Masinovic, assistant director for the Tax Sector in the Indirect Taxation Authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ITA BiH), presented this process and the deadlines for the adoption of accompanying acts, stressing that valuable suggestions from this meeting will be carefully considered.
“Today’s meeting was very useful for us, because we heard the thoughts of actors who are affected by the application of the VAT Act, and in connection with the exemption of food donations from paying VAT, and received feedback on the planned system and supervision of the implementation of this privilege. The ITA working group prepared a preliminary draft of the Ordinance on the amendment of the Ordinance of the implementation of the VAT Law, which will be published at public consultations, and after that, it will be submitted to the ITA Management Board. The suggestions from today’s event will be submitted to the ITA within the framework of these public consultations and the ITA will carefully consider them,” Masinovic explained yesterday.
The head of the BiH Food Safety Agency, Dzemil Hajric, Ph.D., spoke about the aspect of food safety and said that this Agency, in accordance with its competencies, will assist in the drafting of the Rulebook on the implementation of the VAT Law in order to ensure that the donated food, which is about to expire, complies with the Law on Food of BiH and is safe for use.
At the working meeting, the results of the research on the implementation of the donation system of the regional organization Catalyst Balkans, one of the partners of the campaign “Nobody Hungry. Nobody Alone.”, were presented, and the challenges of soup kitchens as recipients of donations and the needs of companies – food donors were discussed at two discussions, Akta reports.
E.Dz.
