In the labyrinth of BH administration and forest of legal regulations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the economy is burdened with more than 3,400 parafiscal levies.
From local communities, cities, cantons, entities, districts to the state, each level of government has found a way to put its hand in the pockets of businessmen and citizens, although often the purpose of such tribute is not clear to anyone.
“There are many absurd ones, but one of the most absurd is the fee for the atomic shelter. First, what is the condition of such shelters today, do they serve as warehouses for some companies or are they unusable? And secondly, does anyone know where they are? When the atomic bomb goes off, where should I run and does it make sense and time to run if that happens? Or, for example, a fee for a prominent company. First, the state prescribes by law that you must nominate a company, and then it takes your money when you nominate it,” said Doctor of Economic Sciences Svetlana Cenić.
From one to several hundred marks for individual fees are poured into the budgets, which, Cenić explains, are planned in such a way that we promise as much as possible and determine how much we want to spend, and subsequently “fix the plan” with rebalancings, so that the parafiscal levies serve for adjusting the budget.
Five years ago, it was estimated that BiH had 20 times more parafiscal levies than Croatia, our western neighbors are announcing a significant reduction or abolition of some of the total of 448 levies.
Despite the demands of the employers, even the economist Cenić is not sure if the new government understands the necessity of relieving the burden on the domestic economy, because after the constitution it will now be busy with dismissals and appointments.
“Imagine one foreign investor who pays his obligations to the state, and then waits for ten others prescribed by the municipality. It’s not just how much it costs, but how long it takes you to fill out the forms, for the clerk to register it. You pay, for example, for the certification of a copy, a stamp, even though by paying taxes you are already financing the administration that does it,” pointed out Cenić.
“In the former Yugoslavia, the municipalities were left with the possibility to reduce taxes by their decisions or to stimulate investments and prevent the departure of the population with similar measures. These were mainly border municipalities, prescribed by federal law, or individual municipalities such as Ljig in Serbia or Laktaši in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But that was a time when nothing was good, and this with a levy of 3,400 is probably good,” said Cenić.
