Tax receipts and social contributions

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Government Finance Statistics Unit

Vesna Simonović

Head of the Unit

Milana Rakića 5, Belgrade

vesna.simonovic@stat.gov.rs

+381 11 2401-734,

+381 11 2412-922, ext. 230

Taxes are enforced proportional contributions from persons and property levied by the law-making body of the state by virtue of its sovereignty for the support of the government and all public needs.

Characteristics of taxes are following:

1.    instrument of redistribution of income and property and not a result of the economic activities of government, but the instrument of redestribution of income and property;

2.    enforced contribution;

3.    generally payable in money;

4.    levied for public purpose;

All transactions that increase the net worth of government are defined as revenue. The transactions can be defined as interaction between two units on the basis of their mutual agreement. Some transactions are, however, introduced by law (e.g. tax payments). Although the taxpayers are not free to choose the amount of the tax to be paid, there is still acceptance of the obligation to pay taxes. Therefore, although tax payments are compulsory, these payments are considered as transactions.

Each transaction is either exchange or transfer. The transaction is defined as an exchange when one unit provides goods, services, property or work of equal value. A transaction is defined as a transfer if one unit provides goods, services, property or work to a second unit, and that, in fact, does not get any good, service, asset, or work in exchange. Taxes and social contributions are compulsory transfers. Taxes are treated as transfers, even though there is no direct link between the payment of taxes and benefits to the taxpayers. However, the taxpayers have indirect benefitс from the services provided by the government.  

Tax is the most important form of public revenue by which the government collects money from the subjects that are under its tax authority, in order to meet government financial needs and the achievement of other objectives (economic, social, cultural, health, and others).

Social contributions are actual or imputed revenue receivable by social insurance schemes to make provision for social insurance benefits payable.

Methodological framework is the European system of accounts (ESA 2010). In addition, Manual of Government Deficit and Debt contains Eurostat decisions on recording of taxes and social contributions.

General government sector (S.13) as well as subsectors (S.1311 – Central government, S.1313 – Local government, S.1314 – Social security funds). The general government sector as defined in ESA 2010 (paragraph 2.111) includes "institutional units which are non-market producers whose output is intended for individual and collective consumption, and are financed by compulsory payments made by units belonging to other sectors, and institutional units principally engaged in the redistribution of national income and wealth".

The indicators are compiled on a national accounts (ESA 2010) basis. They comprise detailed tax and social contribution receipts for the general government sector and its sub-sectors, using the ESA 2010 classification.

Institutional units and groupings of units as defined in ESA 2010.

The institutional units included in general government sector (S.13) according to ESA 2010 (paragraph 2.112) are the following:

a) general government units which exist through a legal process to have judicial authority over other units in the economic territory, and administer and finance a group of activities, principally providing non-market goods and services, intended for the benefit of the community;

b) a corporation or quasi-corporation which is a government unit, if its output is mainly non-market and a government unit controls it;

c) non-profit institutions recognised as independent legal entities which are non-market producers and which are controlled by general government;

d) autonomous pension funds, where there is a legal obligation to contribute, and where general government manages the funds with respect to the settlement and approval of contributions and benefits.

Target population is the general government sector.

Reference area is the territory of the Republic of Serbia. Nevertheless, starting from 1999 the SORS has not at disposal and may not provide certain data relative to AP Kosovo and Metohija and therefore these data are not included in the coverage for the Republic of Serbia.

Consistent data series is available 2005 onwards.

Not applicable.

Data are presented in millions of RSD.

The reference period is the calendar year.

The legal basis for data compiling in the Republic of Serbia is set in the Law on Official Statistics ("Official Gazette of RS", № 104/2009) and the Decision on the Program of Official Statistics, 2016-2020 (“Official Gazette of RS, № 55/2015).

Furthermore, national accounts, and taxes and social contributions as a part of national accounts aggregates, are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) adopted in the form of a Council Regulation dated 21 May 2013, No 549/2013 and published in the Official Journal L 174 of the 26/06/2013. A consolidated version is available on http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32013R0549&from=EN

Data are published on the SORS web-site (www.stat.gov.rs) and transmitted to Eurostat.

Pursuant to Article 46 of the Official Statistics Law (“Official Gazette of RS”, No 104/09), Articles 7 and 35 of the Law on Government Administration (“Official Gazette of RS ”, No 79/05 and 101/07) and Articles 9, 15, 16.  and 18. of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Interest (“Official Gazette of RS”, No120/04, 54 /07 104/09 and 36/10 ), the Director of the SORS thereby adopt the Rulebook on statistical data protection at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. The Rulebook lays down the measures to be implemented so as to protect data and information at the SORS. 

The protection of secret data and documents shall be done in accordance with the Law on Data Secrecy.

Confidential data from Article 3 of the Rulebook are considered official secret and cannot be published or communicated, that is, they cannot be part of aggregated data from which individual data can be identified. Individual data can be given only to the owner of those data.

The protection of the integrity and secrecy of confidential data shall comply with the method specified in the programme of data processing.

Only the employees of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia authorized by the decision of the Director of the SORS shall have access to confidential data from administrative sources.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Data are disseminated simultaneously to all interested parties through a database.

Annual data.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The data are published under the heading “National accounts” in the statistical database at:

http://data.stat.gov.rs/Home/Result/09020107?languageCode=en-US

Not applicable.

Not relevant for these statistics. 

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The SORS established “Quality policy” as the general framework that defines the design and implement the system of quality management, and “Quality strategy” as the framework for the SORS activities as regards the implementation of quality management. Additionally, plan of implementation of quality strategy is defined. The SORS quality management system relies on the mission and vision of the Serbian official statistics, European Statistics Code of Practice, and the principles of Total Quality Management – TQM, which represent the common framework of the European Statistical System (ESS) quality standard. The model of Total Quality Management defines generally the areas of activity and criteria that must be taken into account in quality management. Accordingly, SORS has defined four areas for continuous quality improvement: user orientation, quality of statistical products and processes, strengthening the cooperation with data providers and staff professional development and satisfaction.

Due to great importance, government finance statistics are regular subject to international audits (for example by Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund and OECD).

Statistical Management Information System (SMIS) or compliance database is used for measuring the harmonization of statistics with EU statistical standards, especially the implementation of the methodological, as well as the statistical legislation requirements. The government finance statistics in the Republic of Serbi is evaluated through the Module: Government Finance Statistics.

Data on detailed tax and social contribution receipts are used for fiscal policy analysis. 

Not available.

Completeness of tax and social contributions data can be observed in the context of meeting Eurostat data requirements set in the ESA 2010 Transmission Programme. Starting from September 2014, the transmission of detailed list of taxes and social contribution is carried out as a regular activity envisaged by ESA 2010 Transmission Programme, for the period from 2005 onwards.

Data are in general associated with a high level of overall accuracy.

Not relevant for these statistics.

Not relevant for these statistics.

In accordance with ESA 2010 transmission programme, data are available 9 months after the end of the reference year.

In principle, the data are compiled according to the deadlines.

Considering the fact that the European system of accounts (ESA 2010) is the underlying methodological framework, the high degree of comparability is ensured.

In order to ensure time coherence, the backward calculations of time series are provided.

Not applicable.

Datasets are checked for the internal consistency.

Information not available.

The SORS general revision policy is adopted and published as an official document.

Data revisions may occur at any time. However, major changes are result of changes in methodology.

Main sources of data is the Ministry of Finance - Treasury Administration. Data source for compilation of tax and social contributions receipts is the Report on Gross Payment, Return and Distribution of the Public Revenues (Report T). This report contains detail data on collected public tax and non-tax revenues. Data in the Report are given on the 6-level of classification for each group of public revenues. Besides that, all the receipts are classified by the general government sub-sectors (central government, AP Vojvodina, local municipalities, social security funds). The Report also includes data on the tax return of certain types of taxes. Report T is cash based, namely all the receipts in the Report are registered at the time when the payment is made. Nevertheless, due to the monthly availability of the Report, it is possible to make appropriate cash-to-accrual adjustments.

Data are available on monthly basis.

Not relevant for these statistics.

The validation process consists of arithmetic and quality checks as well as of consistency checks with ESA 2010 methodology and with other available data related to taxes and social contributions.

Data compilation is based on the accounting conventions as defined in ESA 2010.

Time of recording of taxes and social contributions should also be in accordance with Commission Regulation (EC) N° 995/2001 of 22 May 2001 implementing Council and European Parliament Regulation (EC) N° 2516/2000 of 10 July 2000.

In order to comply with the accrual principle as recommended in ESA 2010, time adjustment cash method is being applied for the most significant taxes:

·    Value added tax (D.211) – for the domestic products one month time lag is applied; for the imported products, 8 days time lag is applied;

·     Taxes and duties on imports excluding VAT (D.212) – one month time lag;

·     Excise duties (D.214) -  one month time lag;

·     Corporation income tax (D.51) – six month time lag;

·     Personal income tax (D.51) – one month time lag;

·     Social contributions (D.61) – one month time lag

Due to very small share of other taxes in total amount of taxes and social contributions, there are no adjustments performed.

In relation to the basic data source (Report T), additional adjustment is made for receipts related to radio and television fee. Data on the paid RTV fee, as well as on distribution of the part paid by legal entities (D.29) and the part paid by households (D.59) are obtained directly from „Radio-television Serbia“ and „Radio-television Vojvodina“.