Is it true that on October 31 in Croatia, 1540 companies had a tax debt greater than 300,000 kuna, as claimed by the Tax Administration in its statement, or is it actually 1332 debtors, as listed by the same Tax Administration? The difference is also in the amount: the statement mentions a total debt of 2.99 billion kuna, while counting the debts of all companies on the list results in an amount of 2.81 billion. Between the official statement and the official list, almost 180 million kuna has disappeared; more precisely, 178 million, 422 thousand 884 kuna and 79 lipa of debt!
And this is not the first time the Tax Administration has been accused of ‘double bookkeeping’. For the previous year, it reported 1525 debtors with a total debt of 2.83 billion kuna, while the list contained 1332 with a debt of 2.69 billion. Last year, therefore, 193 companies with a debt of 138 million kuna disappeared from the list of tax debtors. Who knows if part of the tax debtors among individuals engaged in business (reportedly there are 4206 with debts over 100,000 kuna and a total debt of 1.35 billion kuna) and among citizens (30,166 owe more than 15,000 kuna, totaling 4.2 billion) also vanished from the tax shame list in this way?
The tax shame list was first published ten years ago by then Finance Minister Slavko Linić. Initially, the data was updated twice a year. Later, during the term of Finance Minister Zdravko Marić, the publication frequency was halved to once a year. It may be a coincidence, but Marić was a former high-ranking manager at Agrokor, and this occurred during the time when Todorić’s conglomerate had perfected its policy of non-payment to near perfection and was practically on the brink of bankruptcy.
The latest list published this Monday has additional ambiguities. As many as 85 companies out of 1332 debtors have a special note (exclamation mark) next to the total debt amount indicating that the taxpayer has paid part of the debt and thus came below the publication threshold of 300,000 kuna. Among them are 19 companies that settled their debts on October 31, but the list also includes 66 companies that settled their debts up to three weeks before its publication. This applies, for example, to Megalit from Solin, which is ranked 1179th on the shame list with a debt of 350 thousand kuna, and Krajk Has from Donja Pušća, which is in 1280th place with a debt of 315 thousand kuna. Both companies reduced their debts below the threshold as early as October 10.
However, this is in accordance with tax regulations, which publish the list of debtors on October 31 with the debt status as of September 30, along with corrections (payments) up to October 10. All payments made after that result only in a note in the form of an exclamation mark with an explanation of the payment date that brought the debtor below the threshold.
Otherwise, the list itself, at least what has been published, does not deviate from the trend of previous years. A large portion of the 2.69 or 2.83 billion kuna of tax debt will never be collected. Namely, there are even 258 companies on the list in bankruptcy, meaning one in five. Most of them will end up being deleted from the Court Register, with little chance of collecting from all creditors, including the state.
