At cabinet meeting on 27 July 2017, the Government of Montenegro passed two decisions on approving tax debt collection by taking debtors’ property. The total debt of companies Work Finder and Djurkovic Company amounts to €1.6m, MP Rasko Konjevic (SDP) calls in mind.
This is the reason why Konjevic sent open letters to deputy prime minister for economic policy and financial system, Milutin Simovic, supreme state prosecutor Ivica Stankovic and chief special prosecutor Milivoje Katnic.
He believes that it is shocking that in the communication adopted at the cabinet meeting, the government referred to a decree on the procedure for tax collection by taking taxpayer’s property (Official Gazette 12/16) as a legal basis for the approvals, although the decree has not been valid since 31 December 2016.
“The Government decided to favour these companies and collect their debt by seizing their property (apartments, basements and auxiliary facilities, which the owners obviously were not able to valorise for years). Thus, it illegally placed taxpayers who duly settle their obligations in an unequal position – contrary to the provisions of the Law on the Tax Debt Reschedule and others regulations,” he says.
Konjevic believes that the publicly expressed views that the law will be equal for all and that all tax debtors who do not respect the law will be severely sanctioned have obviously been forgotten.
“Instead of strict debt collection, in accordance with the provisions of the law, the government resorts again to illegal decisions. It also announces writing off of hundreds of millions of euros of tax debt without a word on who allowed the tax debt to reach almost €700m and how he/she did that,” Konjevic says.
Konjevic invites Stankovic, Katnic and Simovic to publicly state how it is possible for the government to make these illegal decisions, as well as to say if it is possible that an invalid regulation was cited as a legal basis for such a decision?
“I invite you to propose an urgent annulment of these illegal decisions,” Konjevic says in his open letter.
