INCREASE OF SALARY TAX
(By Hysni Recica)
Hello and welcome to this edition of UNMIK on Air…
VOX-POP: It could not be worse. There is no income at all, this is a big
mistake. It is a shame….
Last Friday the Central Fiscal Authority of Kosovo
announced a decision to increase salary tax and this has raised all sorts of
concerns among the small number of employed people in Kosovo, who were hoping
for an increase in salaries rather then in taxes.
We went out to the streets to hear
what the people had to say, it’s not that easy finding employed people in
Kosovo, but we managed to intercept some and they had things to say
VOX-POP: It is very high. I am employed, I work in KEK, it is high because
salaries are low, there are families with a great number of members. We have
been expecting an increase in salaries….
Naser Prapashtica, is a Tax
Inspector; he works in Tax Payers Service Department, he explains this raise
shouldn’t come as something new because it was all clearly spelt out in the
regulation 2002/4 of April 1st 2002, a regulation that was adopted
by the Department of Tax Policy and signed by the SRSG Michael Steiner.
Naser Prapashtica: The Regulation entered into force on 1st of April 2002, which
set up the tax levels for 2002 and 2003 and further. There is an opinion out
there that there is a 20 % tax increase, this is because of unfair
reporting.
According to this scheme, explains
Naser, somebody making 150 E per month, which is more or less the most common
salary, after all the necessary deductions; pension contribution and salary tax
a person gets Net 133.25 E. In other
words all salaries, which after deductions are below E 250 will pay 10% tax and
all those other over 250 will pay 20% tax.
Elmaze Pireva is Manager of Tax
Payers’ Service Department, she explains some of the criticism received by the
media is fare.
Elmaze Pireva: We have followed critics made by the media, radio, TV and print,
some of them may be true, but we are an administration which is getting in
shape, there is still room for improvement. We are following them to see where
measures can be taken to achieve better results. One of the criticism that
stands is that the private sector has not paid taxes in the same way with the
public sector, then other fields like art, sport have not yet paid salary tax
properly.
Mustafe Hasani, is director of the Tax
Administration, he says that until a new regulation is in force, nothing can be
done to change the present one.
However, after feed back from the public, he wrote a letter to the SRSG
to inform him about the peoples concerns …
Mustafe Hasani: Over the last two days I saw
many reactions in the media, the other thing is that I was not happy with the
interpretation that some experts who did not present the detailed calculation
of the tax. What impact my letter might make, I do not know, at least he
(Steiner) will be informed with reactions from the public that this is a tax
that might burden the living standard of taxpayers. The regulation we are
referring to is signed by Mr. Steiner and he is the only one who could change
it.
VOX-POP: People in charge should have taken care of this, they should have
increased salaries first, and then salary tax, this is detrimental to citizens
since their salaries are getting reduced not increased. The budget of Kosova
should not depend only on peoples’ income; there are also other ways and forms.
Mustafe Hasani: It is
true that there are low salaries, and that I believe that in the next
regulation, which will be extension of the one we have, the Ministry of Economy
and Finances will be able to take measures to change some norms or levels, but
we in the tax administration, until we have a new regulation that changes the
current one, are obliged to apply the one we have.