In 2019, business people in Serbia expect a continuation of government measures on reducing taxes and payroll contributions, re-introducing the option of tax credit for businesses, amending relevant regulations and building the state’s capacity on preventing abuse of sick leave.
In addition to these measures, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia, Marko Čadež says, it is important to continue with the implementation of dual education, but also to enable businesses to have an easier access to “fresh money”.
“Business people have been petitioning for the re-introduction of an option called tax credit for investments in fixed assets that we had in the past. It seems quite feasible that we can do this in certain economic segments in 2019 which would encourage companies to invest more,” says Čadež.
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In the continuation of the dialogue with the government, businesses will insist on further reliefs, namely on the gradual reduction of tax and payroll contributions, as well as on lowering corporate income tax from 15 to 10 percent.
“The plan is to reduce salary tax and contributions from the current 63 percent down to 46 percent. We know that this cannot be done overnight, but we can devise a good plan how do this in the next five years,” he added.
In terms of employees abusing sick leave, the Chamber’s president says that they will work with the authorities on improving legislation and finding ways to strengthen inspection services.
Čadež underlines that out of 56 companies that received state incentives in the last two years, 35 were domestic ones, which disproves the claims that foreign companies make the majority of incentive recipients.
He also says that 2018 was successful, in terms of the dialogue between government and economy which facilitated business and enabled significant investments.
According to Čadež, this year alone, over 50 foreign investment projects have either been launched or completed in Serbia, with the majority of investors coming from Germany, Italy and Turkey.
“About 40 new factories and production facilities have been opened with 16,000 new jobs created. This is no small fete. Also, 12 more production facilities are under construction,” Čadež concluded.
(RTV, 30.12.2018)
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