Maras: I will ask Linić to raise the threshold for craftsmen to 10,000 kuna

The Minister of Entrepreneurship and Crafts, Gordan Maras, stated today that due to the announcement of the initiation of forced collection of debts for taxes and other public dues for amounts exceeding 2,000 kuna, he will discuss with the Minister of Finance, Slavko Linić, and the Director of the Tax Administration, Nada Čavlović Smiljanec, to find an adequate solution for craftsmen and to raise the threshold to ten thousand kuna.

He will propose that no craftsman be enforced or have their account blocked before a warning is sent to them and that the issuance of enforcement be aligned with the payment deadlines that apply in the market of 60 days, said Maras after participating in the 3rd International Conference on Learning for Entrepreneurship.

For the aforementioned solution for craftsmen that he will propose to the Minister of Finance and the Director of the Tax Administration, Maras believes that it will enable those in difficulties to continue working and to pay off debts more easily. Taxes must be paid, and this is the obligation of every entrepreneur and citizen, but procedures should also be aligned with the market problems that most affect the small ones, he said.

Reflecting on yesterday’s reactions from the Croatian Chamber of Trades and Crafts (HOK) that the new measures of forced collection will lead to the closure of numerous crafts, the minister said that HOK is dramatizing and that it certainly will not happen that a large number of craftsmen will end their business because of this.

He also believes that debts for taxes and other public dues should first be collected from ‘large’ debtors, who owe hundreds of thousands and millions of kuna and should not be allowed to let their debts grow further, but when it comes to debts of craftsmen and other ‘smaller’ debtors of a few thousand kuna, understanding is needed and collection can be postponed for, as proposed, 60 days and with prior warning.

In response to a journalist’s question about how it was possible that this started without him knowing about it, or that he found out when it started, Minister Maras said that the Tax Administration has its own way and dynamics of work in which they do not inform other ministries, including, for example, the judiciary, which is the debt limit for individuals or larger companies.

They have their own ways of working and priorities in tax collection, and now that everything has started, we all need to get involved and subsequently discuss and propose solutions for those who work and who would have to close their business due to small debts of a few thousand kuna.

He noted that there are more than 80,000 craftsmen in Croatia and that he is sure that among them there are no large, ‘million’ debtors who are ‘responsible’ for the total estimated debt of 3.5 billion kuna.

He emphasized that this, as well as other problems, is constantly discussed in the Government and that the most optimal solution will be found.