Recently, the deletion of Mesoprodukt d.o.o. from the register was announced on the website of the Commercial Court (a procedure ex officio known as mass liquidation of companies).
Gojko Čuljak, co-owner and director of Mesoprodukt, proves that the company was deleted to cover the tracks of Mesoprodukt’s debtors, the Ministry of the Interior, hospitals, the Požega-Slavonia County, etc. He brought a list of about 70 unresolved lawsuits for the collection of Mesoprodukt’s claims (certified by a lawyer).
Gojko Čuljak is a Croat who returned from the diaspora (Australia) with his brother and families to Croatia in the 1990s. These days, the families of the Čuljak brothers are returning to Australia. They say that life in the diaspora is still better than in Croatia.
Killing with VAT The temporary employment agency AZZ d.o.o. from Novi Vinodolski has been regularly submitting VAT returns for five years (that is 60 monthly and five annual returns, a total of 65). And never received any objections from the Tax Administration.
Then suddenly, Višnja Felker, head of the Department for the Detection of Tax Crimes from the Tax Administration in Rijeka, orders an ‘inspection supervision’ in which it was determined, watch out now, ‘illegal reduction of tax’. They appealed from AZZ to the so-called Appeals Service of the Ministry of Finance, and their appeal was, of course, rejected – instead of the recently famous Zdenka Koharić – the newly appointed Ljubica Strugar.
The catch is that after the rejection from the Appeals Service, the decision on collection becomes enforceable under the principle of ‘pay and appeal’ (a lawsuit to the administrative court does not delay payment). And tax enforcement proceedings began for nearly 9.5 million kuna retroactively for all five years back.
However, there are two catches for which the term ‘illegal reduction of tax’ was used instead of the prescribed ‘tax evasion’.
First, for the act of tax evasion (9.5 million kuna), the Tax Administration must initiate criminal proceedings ex officio, and in criminal courts, ‘the wool is spun’ differently than in the administrative procedure within the compromised Tax Administration (in court, questions are asked, expert opinions are determined, etc., which is all avoided in the administrative procedure, and the disputed money is collected).
And second, in a criminal court, they would ask Višnja Felker how the tax was evaded if no one ‘put the evaded amount in their pocket’, as well as why no tax officials are responsible although they certified 65 disputed VAT returns with their signatures.
AZZ d.o.o. was supposed to charge VAT to its clients even on amounts it merely transferred in the name and for the account of the client (like a flow-through boiler) and then pay that VAT into the state account, while clients would return the paid VAT through the input tax calculation.
Instead, AZZ d.o.o. calculated VAT only on its commission (thus an exemption) with the (five-year) consent of the tax officials.
And because of that, ultimately, the state’s revenue was not reduced, because even if VAT had been paid on the total amount, AZZ’s clients would have returned that amount through input tax. But Višnja Felker, Ljubica Strugar, and other tax officials are trying to fraudulently collect an apparently larger tax revenue.
