Freelancers claim they are offered rejected solution: Government invites them for conversation today

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The president of the Association of Workers on the Internet (freelancers), Miran Pogacar, says that they received an invitation from the Government of Serbia to discuss the payment of income taxes for the last five years, since 2015, but that nothing new was offered to them compared to a previous proposal that they didn't accept.

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It was confirmed yesterdayfor Telegraf Biznis from the Ministry of Finance that this solution would mean that about 80 percent of those who do business in that way will be exempt from paying past taxes. For the other 20 percent of freelancers, the state will propose that interest rates be optimized and along with offering a reprogram of the past tax debt.

"We understand the invitation only as the first step in the negotiations, but we do not accept the offered solution, i.e. the proposal stated in the invitation, since it's only a more clearly explained model that has already been offered to us, which we did not accept," Pogacar told Beta.

He added that the invitation states that the Government formed a team that offered "a solution so that no one's existence is endangered, while the law is respected."

Pogacar added that Vucic recently said that workers on the internet should not pay taxes retroactively, if they had not been prescribed by law, and stressed that they would not accept the already rejected model of writing off interest on tax amounts calculated by tax officials after last year's checks.

After a protest of the workers on the internet held in January, the Ministry of Finance offered to write off the interest on the calculated amounts for the past five years ago, and for freelancers to pay the main sum of taxes for the past five years in monthly installments for a period of ten years, along with paying new and current obligations.

Workers on the internet claim that the proposal is "absolutely unacceptable and would drive them into debt bondage" and suggested that, as in neighboring countries, a law should be passed first, and that freelancers should start paying taxes after that.

They claim that they asked in tax offices how much they should pay, but that they were told that they are not classified in any category of taxpayers. Pogacar said that freelancers were not made to pay taxes retroactively in any neighboring country, but started paying only when a model was established by law.

Two months ago, the Ministry of Finance announced the drafting of a law on the income tax of freelancers by May of this year.

(Telegraf Biznis)