Member of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Saša Magazinović, said today at the press conference that a law to exempt food donations from VAT has been prepared and thus correct the mistake that those who donate food are in “some way punished by the state”.
“The law on the abolition of VAT on food donations is ready and we want to submit it to the procedure as soon as possible. Before that, we want to confirm with the institutions a model that will guarantee that donated food will not end up on the market or that someone will not be exempt from VAT on food that he/she did not donate,” stated Magazinović, talking about the campaign “Niko gladan, niko sam” (Nobody Hungry. Nobody Alone).
He says that they expect the help of the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH and that they will request the cooperation of the management of that institution so that the project would be an example of transparency and a model that cannot be abused.
“We want this law to be adopted as soon as possible. We have time until the formation of the House of Peoples and the start of the work of BiH PA, to define the model that will function after the adoption of the law. Our intention is to offer all representatives to be the proposers of the law,” stated Magazinović.
Dean and lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at SSST University, Faruk Hadžić, said that the data they obtained through research indicate that many companies are not motivated to donate food precisely because of VAT.
He said that companies throw away so much food every year that if they donated and were exempted from paying VAT, the issue of the hungry in BiH would be permanently solved.
The director of the Mozaik Foundation, Zoran Puljić, said that people are hungry and that it is necessary to amend the existing VAT Act as soon as possible, so that food can be donated in much larger quantities.
The founder of the Pomozi.ba Association, Elvir Karalić, believes that the abolition of VAT on donated food would mean a lot to people in a state of need, as the activists of this organization testify daily.
