Aiming to reduce the fiscal and para-fiscal burden to businesses, NALED and USAID developed a comprehensive Registry of non-tax charges in Serbia and created a Study with concrete proposals for the reform of this are. The para-fiscal burden will be reduced if the Government of Serbia takes five steps - eliminates double fees for the same service, adjust the amount of fee with the cost of service provided, eliminates the fees where no counter service or value is provided, return the revenues that naturally belong to the local governments, and establishes a public, electronic Registry of fees and charges on the national level and prescribe that the institutions cannot collect fees and charges that are not included in the Registry.

1. 5 steps to reform of
para-fi scal charges
EXAMPLE: For determining compliance with the sanitary
pre-requisites, i.e. general and special food hygiene requirements
in a constructed slaughterhouse facility, one needs to pay three
republic administrative fees, plus one court fee, plus one fee for
proceeding costs. A total of 5 fees for one service.
EXAMPLE: The veri cation of pledge statement submitted to the
bank for placing real estate property under mortgage in the course
of taking housing loans, required a xed payment of RSD 550 court
fee regardless of the value of the loan. Starting from 01/09/2014,
when veri cation was entrusted to public notaries, the fee amount
was signi cantly increased, and now depends on the amount of ho-using
loan granted. For a loan of EUR 30,000, the veri cation costs
10,080 plus VAT.
Examples of para- scal charges that should be eliminated:
• Fee for establishing mandatory commodity reserves;
• Special fee for holders of copyright and related rights.
Example of charges the title of which should be conformed to their
true nature:
• Fee for organizing special games of chance on slot machines (tax
by nature);
• Funds for introducing, functioning and improving the system of
monitoring, control and regulation of traf c (tax by nature).
EXAMPLE: There are situations in practice where the local administra-tion
provides the service at their own cost, but the revenues go to the
national budget – e.g. birth, marriage and death certi cates. A repu-blic
administrative fee of RSD 120 is charged for issuing the certi cate.
Under the same Tariff number, the certi cates in international form
are charged RSD 380. In addition to bearing the cost of keeping these
records and providing salaries and work conditions for employees, the
LGs also need to buy the certi cate paper forms.
EXAMPLE: In 2009, the Government adopted a Decree on the amo-unt
of fee for issuing and extending the certi cate on animal health
condition, stipulating the amount of RSD 11 per bee community.
Only a year later, the Government amended the Decree, raising the
fee to RSD 64, which is a 581% increase and cannot be justi ed with
in ation and growth in foreign exchange rate. This is a service requ-iring
no investments – all prior actions are paid, this is only a fee for
issuing the certi cate.
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Eliminate the practice of
charging multiple fees for
the same service
Adjust the amount
of fees to the cost of
service provided
Eliminate para-fi scal charges
where no service is provided
in return, or conform the
charges to their true nature
Regulate the system of local
government revenues and
return the revenues from fees
that naturally belong to LG
Change the regulations to
ensure predictability and
transparency of non-tax
charges