Bosnia Pressured to ‘Name and Shame’ Tax Evaders

After Croatia published a list of tax evaders, the Bosnian institutions are under pressure to do the same as the country is missing around 130 million euros in unpaid taxes.The Bosnian Indirect Taxation Authority, ITA, said on Wednesday that they support the idea of going public with the names of individuals and companies who failed to pay their taxes.

The report on tax debtors will soon be finished said the tax authority’s director Miro Dzakula adding it will contain the names of all debtors who own total of 260 million KM [130 million euros.Emir Kabil, an official of the opposition Alliance for a Better Future, told the daily newspaper Dnevni Avaz, that if Bosnia would collect all the taxes it is owned there would be no need to reach for the International Monetary Fund, IMF, loan.

“In well run countries if you don’t pay your taxes they sanction you, but in our country that data is hidden,” Kabil noted.

Croatian Finance Ministry published on July 31 a list of more than 100,000 companies and individuals who owe the country millions of euros in taxes.

The biggest debtor is the Zagreb-based construction company Tempo which owes around 39 million euros followed by the Croatian national broadcaster, HRT, which owes around 30 million euro.

The list of Croatian debtors includes 7,124 companies with an estimated total tax debt of more than two billion euro. There are 13,066 small businesses whose total tax debt is estimated at around €600,000.

The list contains 82,180 individual citizens, with an estimated total debt of 1.32 billion euros.