Serbia: Changes to tax procedure and administration law

The Serbian Parliament on 9 December 2022 adopted the following amendments—effective 20 December 2022—to the tax procedure and administration law:

• Individuals must file individual (personal) income tax returns only in electronic form via the tax administration’s portal, beginning with 2022 returns. With the introduction of annual individual (personal) income tax into the regime of self-taxation and for the purpose of simplifying data entry and calculation of the tax liability, the tax authority will prefill the tax return and deliver it to the taxpayer electronically via the portal, with stated information on income that the individual realized from the income payer for which appropriate tax returns had been filed with the tax authority. The individual will be able to amend/supplement the prefilled return and file it electronically.
• The tax authority may initiate enforced collection procedures even if a taxpayer has submitted a request for deferral of tax payment, although approval of a taxpayer’s request for deferral of tax payment will result in suspension of any initiated enforced collection procedure with respect to such deferred tax.
• If irregularities are identified via tax audit (e.g., lack of reliable documentation for goods and services relevant for assessing tax, failure to deposit daily sales to a bank account, employment of persons without an employment contract or other employment document and failure to report an individual to the competent mandatory social insurance organization, failure to record a supply through fiscal cash registers, electronic fiscal devices or in another prescribed manner), the taxpayer will be prohibited from performing commercial activity as follows:
  • For a period of 15 days—if the irregularity is determined for the first time
  •  For a period of 90 days—if the irregularity is determined for the second time
  • For a period of one year—if the irregularity is determined for the third time
• A responsible person in an entity may be prohibited from performing certain activities for a period of six month to three years (in addition to any applicable monetary fine) if multiple instances of the following offences are found within a period of two years:
  • Failure to file a tax return or otherwise calculate and pay tax
  • Filing a tax return or otherwise calculating tax, but failing to pay

Read a December 2022 report [PDF 209 KB] prepared by the KPMG member firm in Serbia