Serbia: The E-Taxes portal

The Tax Administration, which operates within the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Serbia, has enabled the electronic filing of certain tax returns through the "E-Taxes" portal since 2014. The cycle of translating paper tax returns into electronic ones was completed in 2018, which means that since then, all tax returns can be submitted electronically. The electronic filing of tax returns is regulated by the Rulebook on filing tax returns electronically.

High security standards

The E-Taxes portal is a collection of electronic services of the Tax Administration of the Republic of Serbia, which enables all taxpayers to submit online tax return forms with digital signatures, follow up on the status of sent returns and obtain insight into the tax card of a taxpayer, with the purpose of fulfilling obligations towards the Tax Administration more quickly and easily. This system meets high security standards, which enable safe and uncompromised electronic data transfers.

The portal enables taxpayers to fill in, sign and send tax return forms to the Tax Administration. Furthermore, taxpayers can adjust their accounting software to upload files automatically in an appropriate format (XSD schemes and XML samples available in Instructions and forms), sign them digitally and forward them to the Tax Administration through the E-Taxes portal.

Free of charge

The portal facilitates access to the tax cards of taxpayers and to the integrated register of taxpayers, and enables the reviewing of tax returns already submitted online. It also provides taxpayers with a give/revoke authorisation service for e-business. All activities which the taxpayer undertakes via the E-Taxes portal are free of charge.

The submission of electronic tax returns is limited to revenues administered by the Tax Administration (e.g. VAT returns, salary tax returns, corporate income tax returns, personal income tax returns, property tax returns, excise duty tax returns, etc.). It is interesting to note that during 2018 an average of about 525,000 electronic tax returns were filed on a monthly basis.

In addition to electronic tax filing services, taxpayers also use the electronic filing and processing service to request balances on their tax accounts. Since this electronic service was established, more than seven million query requests regarding the balances of tax accounts have been filed and processed through the E-Taxes portal.

Author: Bojan Radojičić