The application of the recently adopted law on the abolition of the tax on donated food in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) will not start if the state does not control the donation process, according to the association that runs one of the 60 soup kitchens in BiH.
Soup kitchens in BiH, humanitarian organizations, and companies that would donate food without paying tax are still waiting for the already adopted law to abolish the tax to be applied in practice.
It remains to be determined how exactly the law will be applied, how to donate food before the expiration date, and what companies must do to prevent possible resale of donated food.
Miroslav Subasic, the president of the Citizens’ Association “Mozak prijateljstva“, which runs the Banja Luka soup kitchen, says that he was recently called by a company that wanted to sign the receipt of expired goods because they wanted to keep the goods as long as possible for the sake of profit. He refused, and now they will have to destroy it, as the law requires.
“Something that goes bad, you can’t throw it in the container intended for garbage every day, but you have to move it to the garbage dump. At that garbage dump, you have to pay for everything, those are very big procedures. And this procedure, giving to another person before the expiration date, that makes the whole story so much easier,” emphasizes Subasic.
The essence of the new law
Until now, every company that donated food to soup kitchens – which often referred to food that was about to expire – had to pay a 17% value-added tax, which is the amount of that tax in BiH, along with the donation.
This practice should be abolished, because, on June 15th, the House of Peoples of BiH voted to amend the law on VAT.
What exactly is the reason that the application of the law is still pending?
Companies and humanitarian agencies, however, have to wait for the Indirect Taxation Authority (ITA) of BiH to amend its Rulebook on the application of the law, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
