Targeted tax inspections bear fruit: more than 1356 sales locations temporarily closed in Serbia
In the first half of the year, and especially during the summer period, the Tax Administration of Serbia conducted a large number of targeted visits to sales locations.
Summer is a period when many fairs, catering, music, and tourist events are held. It is a time when everyone feels relaxed, especially since a large number of these events take place in open spaces. During this period, the Tax Authority intensifies field controls to determine how taxpayers behave in the fiscalization process.
Results that Speak Volumes
Out of 2159 inspections, the Tax Authority temporarily closed 1356 locations, representing one of the most severe penalties applied in case of fiscal violations. The most common violations are failure to issue invoices or issuing inappropriate invoices instead of those required by the law.
The Tax Administration saw this success as a good incentive to carry out targeted control actions in various sales locations, identified by the risk analysis as carrying higher risks of tax evasion. Thus, more visits and controls were carried out in particularly targeted locations.
In this regard, out of the 99 inspections of hairdressing and beauty salons, 54 were temporarily banned from operating. Of the 136 dentists inspected, 44 failed to issue fiscal invoices. Additionally, 65.35% of pharmacies and 55.36% of jewelers did not issue fiscal invoices.
Finally, the latest inspection campaign included roasteries and fish markets, with results showing that 69.57% of roasters and 48.48% of fish markets operated improperly and, therefore, the Tax Administration fined them.
Modern Tools Revolutionise Tax Inspections
The article related to this action emphasizes:
“Thanks to the modern tools of the new fiscalization model, the Tax Administration has all the necessary data on real-time turnover at every retail location in the Republic and that in this way, with the application of risk analysis and targeted controls, it can effectively respond to any irregularities among taxpayers who do not fulfill their legal obligations.”
The Tax Administration of the Republic of Serbia successfully replaced the old and inefficient fiscalization system based on fiscal devices with fiscal memory and GPRS terminals in 2022. Since then, the Tax Administration has fiscalized 190,000 taxpayers across 225,000 points of sale. Taxpayers have issued around 7 billion fiscal invoices – an average of 10 million per day.
To make it happen, the system signs and issues fiscal invoices in real time and forwards them to the Tax Administration server. In the same way, it creates invoices in the offline mode and forwards them to the Tax Administration server when an internet connection is available.
Risk Analysis Applied to Large Databases
As a matter of fact, the high percentage of offenders in relation to the number of verified taxpayers comes as a consequence to the aforementioned newly introduced fiscalization system that stores all issued invoices.
The application of risk analysis on the existing large database of invoices allows for the identification of potentially risky taxpayers to whose addresses the Tax Administration sends its tax inspectors.
The new SUF system ensures the verification of each invoice immediately after the customer receives it, regardless of whether the taxpayer issued the invoice in the offline or online modes. This verification allows the customer to complain about an invoice with an error. To further increase efficiency, Serbia organizes a fiscal lottery once a year with large prizes using a supported verification system, i.e. QR code scanning. During the fiscal lottery period, the number of issued invoices drastically increases. After the lottery awards, some taxpayers reduce their number of issued invoices, but the system easily detects it by analyzing the existing invoice database.
