The Croatian Government is expected to send a proposal for a law on state support for education and training to the Parliament from tomorrow’s session, based on which entrepreneurs and craftsmen could once again achieve tax relief for employee education.
At the beginning of this year, the implementation of amendments to the Corporate Income Tax Act began, which abolished tax relief for the education and professional development of workers. The Government, aligning Croatian legislation with EU legislation, proposes to resolve this through a law on state support for education and training. This law also stipulates that entrepreneurs and craftsmen who provide evidence of education and training costs this year could achieve support for that period in 2008. The tax relief could be obtained for part of the justified costs of tuition at primary, secondary, higher, and university schools and faculties, fees for seminars, courses, and congresses, costs of professional literature, etc.
Thus, large entrepreneurs could reduce their corporate income tax base by up to 50 percent of justified costs in the case of general education, and by up to 25 percent of costs in the case of special education and training, while small and medium-sized entrepreneurs could reduce their corporate income tax or income tax base by up to 70 and 30 percent of costs, respectively. Craftsmen could achieve relief if they have apprentices, whereby their corporate income tax or income tax base could be reduced by 5 percent if they have up to three apprentices, and for each subsequent apprentice, the percentage would increase by one percentage point, up to a maximum of 15 percent of the tax base.
Employers who send workers in disadvantaged positions, such as disabled individuals, long-term unemployed, older workers, etc., can count on additional reductions. The Government is also expected to submit final texts of laws on the quality of healthcare, on the takeover of companies, and on accounting to the Parliament from tomorrow’s session.
