BiH authorities co-operate to stop tax fraud

Goran Salihovic (left), BiH chief prosecutor, and Miro Dzakula, the director of the tax authority, are working together to prosecute people for not paying taxes. [Mladen Dragojlovic/SETimes]

BiH authorities co-operate to stop tax fraud

Based on Croatia's Bureau for Combating Corruption and Organised Crime, a new team in BiH expects to investigate and prosecute tax evaders more quickly.

Goran Salihovic (left), BiH chief prosecutor, and Miro Dzakula, the director of the tax authority, are working together to prosecute people for not paying taxes. [Mladen Dragojlovic/SETimes]

The Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) prosecutor's office and the Indirect Taxation Administration have established a team of experts to investigate thousands of companies in the country for tax fraud.

The companies are suspected of having avoided paying nearly 150 million euros total in direct, excise and customs taxes.

Goran Salihovic, chief prosecutor, and Miro Dzakula, the director of the tax authority, are directing the team. The group will be based on Croatia's Bureau for Combating Corruption and Organised Crime, which has successfully prosecuted tax evaders in that country, Salihovic said.

"The prosecutor's office and the tax authority will co-operate in order to prepare criminal reports on these companies and to do it in a fast and quality way," Salihovic told SETimes.

Ratko Kovacevic, a spokesman for the tax authority, said the team will help strengthen co-operation between the two institutions.

"Before, there were experts for every single case of tax fraud and it made the job slow and inefficient. Now we have situation where they will work as a team on all cases, and that means faster work," Kovacevic said.

He added that the co-operative effort will help deter tax fraud in the future.

If the team solves these cases faster than before, everybody who considers committing tax fraud will think...

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