You don’t have to be the next Sherlock Holmes to realise why they’ve introduced it. You don’t even have to be a financial expert or have any economic background whatsoever to figure out the reasoning behind it. And you certainly shouldn’t be angry or upset that it’s been brought in. How can the government in one relatively easy step add an extra billion Kuna into the budget? Simple, by introducing the fiscal cash register.
Only 15 percent through cash transactions
Yes, the fiscal register will add one billion to the state budget, so where has that one billion Kuna been going till now? There have been scare stories and general attempts to raise panic throughout the nation that the fiscal cash register will be complicated, limited and too hard to use, but these were just scare stories pumped up through the media. Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory but sometimes it’s time to get real. And then from the other side, from the side of businesses, there have been complaints that the introduction of the fiscal cash register will kill their business and add an extra unwanted cost. I’m sorry if I’m not crying my heart out for you! Here’s my take on the fiscal cash register. Firstly if businesses weren’t so greedy in the first place then we wouldn’t have them. How is it possible that only around 15 percent of all turnover in the Republic of Croatia last year was made through cash transactions? Are we really all paying for our coffee and croissant with a credit card? No, of course we aren’t. So when I go and drink my coffee and the bill arrives it includes PDV, as it should, but where is that PDV going. That bill might read 15 Kuna for the coffee of which 1.5 Kuna is PDV. Now when I leave the café bar the owner might well destroy that same bill and put the 15 Kuna cash in his pocket. Wait, something doesn’t seem fair there. We’ve all had the situation when we’ve paid in cash to avoid paying PDV, but here I’m paying for the full price including PDV, basically giving the café bar owner a “bonus” of 25 percent, or now 10 percent. When the man comes to fix my boiler and offers a “cash price” this doesn’t include PDV, good for me and good for him, and yes I know not so good for the state budget. But when a café bar and restaurant owner pockets the PDV I’ve paid that’s morally wrong, in fact I’m being exploited. So once again forgive me if I’m not bursting out into tears with the introduction of the fiscal cash register.
I pay…you pay…we all pay
If I have to pay income tax and a whole host of other taxes on my salary every month then my heart isn’t going to break if you have to pay a few taxes that you should have been paying anyway. Workers in a factory, a bank, a travel agency, a school, etc pay taxes every month, why shouldn’t you? The money that the state collects from these taxes goes into building roads, education, policing and a whole plethora of other public services. The owners of these “black businesses” are enjoying all these services without actually contributing towards the cost of any of them. You could say that these businesses that have been reporting next to nothing in terms of turnover and stealing our PDV are actually a burden on the society. In other words they are the anti Robin Hoods, stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. So, no I’m not surprised that the fiscal cash register has been introduced, basically the greedy got too greedy. Just look at the list of countries that have the fiscal cash register and things will be clearer: Albania, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Russia and Kenya. It’s like looking at a list of the “usual suspects” when the words corruption and tax evasion are mentioned. I’m not saying that other countries, more developed countries, are whiter than white, of course not, they are simply wiser. If you steal 80 percent and report only 20 percent of course the government will be forced to introduce a “big brother” system to control the situation. And if you flip the percentages the government is aware that 20 percent is being hidden away but they are more than happy with the 80 percent of legal money. In 2011 only 15 percent of all transactions in the US and Germany were “black economy” whilst in Russia that figure was 65 percent. As a good friend of mine said about the introduction of the fiscal register, “It’s about giving legal business an advantage over illegal businesses” and added “I can’t see a law abiding company being worried about the introduction of the registers.”
2 Comments on "How the fiscal cash register ruffled feathers in Croatia"
in Italy it was introduced years ago and for a (very) small part is has helped. But a lot of shops (especially smaller ones) still ask you “do you want a receipt?” – hairdressers get away with it, florists, plumbers etc etc. But even doctors/specialists, dentist, they all ask you “do you want an invoice” and if you say no, it’s cheaper.
Italian tax authorities have been recently doing “raids” in main cities and holiday resorts like Cortina, to find restaurants and clubs which don’t use the cash-registers. And to find people who go to expensive holiday resort with expensive Ferrari’s, but declare next to nothing in their Tax Returns. Things take a long time to change.
Good point…as they say if things don’t change they stay the same