Serbian municipalities don't pay property tax

The government of Kosovo's recent step was to cut pay for 32 Serbian teachers who received salaries without going to work. However, Serbs in Kosovo continue not to pay electricity, which Kosovo is costing millions of euros.

Then, they have developed parallel education by learning about Serbia's literature and have established a university that does not respond to our educational institutions. The university is not accredited by Kosovo institutions, it is not working with the curriculum and the programme of our institutions. It's also in the health system, where doctors take wages and municipalities are supplied with herbs from the essential list but are not giving responsibilities to the institutions of our state. They never reported cases of COVID-19.

The majority Serb municipalities are continuing to disrespect even the laws and regulations of our state, ignoring Kosovo's symbols. Meanwhile, contrary to the Constitution, the main currency continues to be the dinar.

At the same time, no property tax is paid, despite the fact that in other municipalities in the country it has been paid for years. It is also done in northern Mitrovica, where the General Auditor's Office has found several violations of the law.

“Noni 2 of the Law on Realve Taxation clearly states that any budgetary organisation should collect revenues from the tax to the Property, municipality for 2021 had not started for the collection of revenues. The municipality has not planned access to the property tax in the 2021 budget because they have not yet managed to form a property tax service (no property tax manager, no polling officials, or trained officials for the use of the protax system). Also, they did not identify property so they can then make a property register. Although the property inventory process began in 2014, with the support of the Kosovo Katastral Agency, the municipality has not yet completed it. This has happened because the municipality has not yet established a law enforcement policy and has not taken concrete action to collect revenues from these activities that have a significant impact on the municipal budget level. Furthermore, from the aspect of auditing, the issue and recommendation have been repeated over the years, however, by the municipality there are no signs of taking concrete measures. The impact of not implementing the Law and Law regulations on property collection has significant and priority impact, adding the fact here that property tax is the only decentralised tax on the municipal level. In turn, revenues are not realised, which directly affects reaching the city's goals where revenues are the basis of financing”, says the audit report for 2021.

The report has also found incorrigibly water pay, which it says is regulated with the Water Law, respectively with the 02/2016 Water Tax Guide.

In December 2020, the municipality has accepted and recorded a valid bill of 58,837m from the Regional Waterwork ãovica for water consumption for 01-30.11.2020. Based on the accepted bill and the financial card of the buyers of the 1512.20th year and on the Regional Water Water Paper for the amount of municipal debt and facilities, the municipality has paid the remaining debt for water consumption by 09.02. An estimated 14,337 euros. The bills are not specified and do not show clear data on customer costs (Communal targets) individually. The company does not hand out bills to the municipality on a monthly basis, so the municipality has not declared this bill as duty (in its 2021 mirror). This has happened, according to the municipality, not to remain without water, the municipality has had to pay off debts for users or public institutions, which it finances. Despite the fact that no bills were offered to the municipality on a monthly basis and the debt to the agreed bill, the municipality does not have an accurate mirror of its obligations to submit them in the report. The water payment impact, which was not registered as the municipality's obligation, risks that duties paid by the municipality are not identified as paid, or even paid off, obligations not to the municipality”, the General Auditor's report on the Northern Mitrovica municipality said.

The audience has found incorrigible even in the non-reporting of winners on the cost of subsidies given.

“Based on MF rule. 04/2017 for the criteria, standards and procedures for public financing of NGOs, Article 23. Monitoring and reporting on projects and programmes in which the grant beneficiary reports to the monitoring official, on regular grounds regarding the implementation/program as envisioned in the contract envisioned in Article 22 of this regulation. The report includes legal and financial reporting and reporting periods will be determined in line with contract provisions with the beneficiary. In the case of two contracts signed between NGOs and the municipality worth $9,300, no financial and irreverent reports of expenses made, as is signed by contract and regulation for public financing of NGOs. This has been due to the failure to function control over monitoring the subsidy provided by municipal officials and the failure to meet contract-defined obligations by the subsidy beneficiary. The lack of reporting impact on the beneficiaries of subsidies for the expenditures made could result in poor”, the report said.

The final budget for 2021, according to the audience in this municipality, was 9,031,006 euros, compared to the initial budget, has increased to 4,034,733 euros.

The gap between the initial and final budget is the result of increased transfers of its own revenues from the preliminary year (109,432 euros), revenues from external donations worth (15,039 euros), transfers of resources from the Fund for Development (4,080,544 euros) and credit financing (6,111 euros), while having been reduced by the Government grant for 176,3 euros. In 2021 the municipality spent 52 percent of its final budget - a 6 percent drop compared to 2020 (58 percent). Budget implementation remains disappointing”, the ZKA concludes. /Kosovo priss