Abstract
In this paper the authors deal with the crucial question of the ability of the Serbian institutions and society to apply adequate scrutiny with respect to the enactment of tax legislation. After providing a description of the current Serbian law-making and public consultations framework, and analyzing the relevance of the transitional nature of the Serbian political environment on the approach to the business of legislating, the authors choose three case studies which lead to the conclusion that it is the lack of even basic knowledge regarding taxation, at the level of the members of parliament and the media, combined with the silence and inertness of Serbian professional circles to participate in public debates on tax policy, that is enabling many questionable norms to enter Serbian legislation without any notable opposition or deliberation. Finally, the authors propose certain measures that could improve the public consultations process.
Highlights
Fair and sustainable taxation is a political ideal whose origins can be traced as far back as the ancient verses of The Mahabharata:“A king should milk his kingdom like a bee gathering honey from plants
After providing a description of the current Serbian law-making and public consultations framework, and analyzing the relevance of the transitional nature of the Serbian political environment on the approach to the business of legislating, the authors choose three case studies which lead to the conclusion that it is the lack of even basic knowledge regarding taxation, at the level of the members of parliament and the media, combined with the silence and inertness of Serbian professional circles to participate in public debates on tax policy, that is enabling many questionable norms to enter Serbian legislation without any notable opposition or deliberation
34 Art. 75 of the Personal Income Tax Law, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, Nos. 24/01, 80/02 stipulated: “If a right, share or security were acquired by the taxpayer through a gift, as the acquisition value from Article 74, paragraph 1 of this Law shall be deemed the value at which the donor acquired the same right, share or security.”
Summary
Fair and sustainable taxation is a political ideal whose origins can be traced as far back as the ancient verses of The Mahabharata:. The increasing complexity of the contemporary social, economic and tax system, commonly recognized nowadays, is making the tax laws opaque to the average taxpayer and they are unable to evaluate whether their tax liabilities are generated by a fair set of rules.5 In such an environment the temptation of corruption, understood in the broadest sense as the misuse of public office for private gain, may become too great to resist. As the comprehensibility of tax legislation, which requires the ability to understand a) the subject matter with which the legislation is dealing (content) and b) the language used to draft the legislation (text).8 This has been addressed by a wide spectrum of institutional mechanisms that enable public deliberation on tax issues, spanning from institutionalized public hearings and public and government commissions to general public discussion that includes various actors such as political parties, media, think tanks etc.. Democratic legislative process, as well as to point out, using comparative legal method, solutions (or combinations thereof) that best remedy the determined deficiencies
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
