Tax Extortion of Journalists Who Do Not Write Favorably About Šuker and the Government

The ‘legal basis’ for the forced collection from journalists’ accounts is a decision signed by Zdravko Markač, a tax official who has since been sentenced to four years in prison for tax extortion.

writes Ivica Grčar
[email protected]

Last week, I was contacted by my colleague Jelena Lovrić. She is under pressure from tax officials due to critical articles about Finance Minister Šuker and the Government. She says she learned that I am also subjected to similar pressure from tax officials and asks if we can try to resist the arbitrariness of the tax authorities together. Indeed, I am very ‘unpopular’ in the Tax Administration of the Ministry of Finance, especially after I initiated legal proceedings based on the Access to Information Act against Minister Šuker. Minister Šuker has denied taxpayers information about the (public) revenue of the state budget from mining and concession fees, such as how much revenue is generated from the exploitation of natural gas from the Adriatic seabed or the extraction of domestic oil.  

Conflict of Interest
Šuker is the minister responsible for the state budget and also the chairman of the Supervisory Board of INA. In the morning, he discusses at the Government how to make concession and mining fees as high as possible to increase state budget revenue, and in the afternoon at the meeting of the Supervisory Board of INA, he discusses how to make those same fees as low as possible for the greater profit of the private company INA. Tax officials loyal to their minister are pressuring journalists who dare to inform the public that Šuker is in a conflict of interest by unjustifiably increasing levies. Colleague Lovrić was suddenly presented with a decision requiring her to pay contributions on author fees retroactively for last year, 2009, even though she is insured ‘on another basis’ (and is already paying those contributions).  Until now, colleague Lovrić had no obligation to pay contributions on fees, which raises the question of why the tax officials did not inform her with the prescribed administrative act back in 2008 that a new obligation would begin on January 1, 2009. The same was done to me, also retroactively, but for 2005 and 2006. The decisions requiring me to pay contributions on author fees for 2005 and 2006 were signed by Zdravko Markač, who has since been sentenced to four years in prison for tax extortion and the confiscation of 3.6 million kuna in assets (trial due to the ‘Dubai’ affair).

Disobedience
I refuse to pay such determined contributions to this day, and in return, the tax officials have blocked my business account in the bank. Because of this, I am pursuing a case in the Constitutional Court (U-I-3792/2007). To help readers understand, authors (and pensioners) are exempt from paying contributions on fees, but tax officials have ‘under the table’ determined that this does not apply to authors who have opted to keep tax records.  Thus, the right to equality before (tax) laws is violated. Depending on a completely irrelevant criterion of whether or not to keep tax records when delivering author works and for determining status in the social security system, certain groups of people are unjustifiably placed in a more favorable or less favorable tax position. However, this is not a problem with the principles of taxation. Officials of the Tax Administration of the Ministry of Finance deliberately apply regulations on increasing burdens selectively against undesirable taxpayers. As far as I know, colleague Lovrić and I are the only authors in Croatia who must pay such determined contributions. Before colleague Lovrić contacted me, I unsuccessfully tried to find someone else with the same obligation.

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