For the "short" tax, 8,7 million euros

Citizens and the economy owe 8,7 million euros to the municipality of Pljevlja in real estate tax, despite the fact that in the first five months of this year, collection has increased compared to the same period last year.

Acting Director of the Public Revenue Administration Vladimir Džuverović he said that the increase in income from land tax was 47 percent, while tax collection for construction objects increased by 292 percent.

Of the total debt, 5,1 million euros are owed by citizens, and 3,6 million by companies and entrepreneurs.

In the first five months of this year, the Local Public Revenue Administration collected EUR 203.578 from real estate tax from legal entities, and EUR 98.033 from individuals. In relation to the budget plan, until May 25, the land tax was collected in the percentage of 8,3 percent, and for construction objects 12,09 percent.

Džuverović says that the percentage of realization for this period is excellent from a nominal point of view, because they only collect obligations from the previous period, since they are just determining the tax for 2022, and the first installment is due on June 30.

Out of the total debt of legal entities based on real estate tax, the biggest debtor is still "Vektra Jakić", which owes the local government about 2,5 million euros on that basis.

Džuverović said that last year one of the workers left the Local Public Revenue Administration, and two moved to other companies, which is why they were not able to carry out the enforcement procedure for natural persons as they had planned, while they succeeded partially for legal entities.

"It is interesting to say that in 2021, for the first time, we managed to bring real estate tax claims for legal entities to the level of 2020. Forced collections for legal entities, which now regularly settle their obligations, contributed the most to this," Džuverović said.

He pointed out that a big problem in tax collection from natural persons is unresolved property-legal relations.

"We are in the process of implementing the tax software LARIS, which will allow us to update and improve our database for natural persons. The implementation process formally started last year, but the export process was slow on the part of the company that won the tender. During that period, our obligation was to determine the accuracy of the data transferred to our database, i.e. validation, but there was no match, so we sent them back to do a new export. Since January 2022, we have intensified our work with them, we are working on data validation. They are slow because they are working on a program for all Montenegrin municipalities," Džuverović said.

During the year, the Administration of Local Public Revenues will begin testing this program, and if it proves to be a good solution, tax determinations in the new program will begin in 2023.

All taxpayers will be able to check their tax debt through the website based on their personal identification number, i.e. PIB. The same software will also be applied to income taxes because legal entities are also required to submit tax returns for employees. For unpaid debt, the daily interest will be 0,03 percent.

In January and February, there was no drop in income due to "Europe Now"

In January and February, the municipality of Pljevlja did not have a decrease in income from personal income tax due to the "Europe Now" program.

"Salaries from December to January had to be paid, so there could be no reduction. According to the adopted law on income tax, all legal entities were obliged to submit all tax returns, i.e. IOPPD forms that they had not submitted by then, by February 15, 2022. Most of the legal entities settled their tax returns by submitting them, and for that reason we did not have any negative effects in February," Džuverović said.

Since March, a decrease in income from personal income tax and tax surcharge has been registered.