Tax Official Harassed Entrepreneur for Being Four Seconds Late with Invoices

I was sitting and having coffee with a relatively young entrepreneur. He had completed some work in our building, and since I am the elected representative of the tenants, it was only right to celebrate the well-done work with coffee.

And so, little by little, the conversation inevitably turned towards the economic situation, and eventually to tax policy. He opened his company a year ago and had already had a painful experience with a tax officer. As he heard from other entrepreneurs, ‘tax officials have become impossible’, so he, poor thing, flinched at every possible call from them. That’s why he tried to do everything according to the ‘manual’.

The Worst-Case Scenario One day, his phone rang. It was the tax officer calling, informing him that there was a problem with his company and asking him to come to her immediately if he had nothing urgent. He stopped his usual activities, got into his car, and hurried to see what it was about. He says he was even once on the verge of a yellow and red light at a traffic signal, meaning he was in ‘offside’ in the middle of the intersection, but he continued on his way to the Tax Office. While driving, he thought about what it could be, what he might have done wrong, and, as is often the case in such situations, the worst-case scenario came to mind. He thought he would be penalized by the tax office for something.
The tax officer received him in a formal manner, neither frowning nor smiling. She immediately presented his problem. She told him that there was an issue with issuing invoices. He, poor thing (and he looked that way while he was talking), interrupted her and quickly said that he issues all invoices. ‘No, that’s not the problem,’ the officer continued, ‘but we are interested in why there is a time difference between pressing ‘enter’ and printing the invoice.’ My interlocutor smiled and asked her, ‘What do you mean, what time difference?’ Then she told him that there is a time difference of four seconds between pressing ‘enter’ and printing the invoice.
– This is the situation when I press ‘enter’ on my tablet and that circle appears, like a sand timer that spins for a few seconds because the tablet obviously cannot execute the command immediately. When the circle disappears, then the invoice is printed. I told her: ‘Well, ma’am, I rushed across half of Zagreb to see what it was about, fearing that I had made some kind of mistake, and in the end, you are blaming me for a few seconds.’ But she said that it must be aligned with the regulations – says my unfortunate interlocutor.

In Accordance with the Regulations The good thing is that he was neither fined nor was a record made, so he still has no negative points with the tax office. He says he pays all obligations on time and adds that he feels some dynamics in the economy, although he notes that he is not competent to speak about it since he has only been in the entrepreneurial waters for a year.
The Tax Administration responds that the officer’s actions were in accordance with the Regulation on Fiscalization in Cash Transactions. More about their explanation can be read in the framework, but they note that it is possible that it was a bad internet connection. Namely, as they explain, in layman’s terms, when an entrepreneur presses ‘enter’, that command travels to the Tax Administration, which registers it and returns the information to the entrepreneur that the invoice has been fiscalized, and all of this takes two seconds. Four seconds is, they obviously consider, an exaggeration. However, although the rules must be followed, the Tax Administration is exaggerating.