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STA, 19 October 2021 - Andrej Vizjak, environment minister, has denied having urged businessman Bojan Petan to avoid taxes in relation to spa Terme Čatež in 2007. He said on Tuesday the recording aired on Monday by POP TV was "a collage". He labelled it manipulation, which he attributed to businessman Martin Odlazek's "garbage mafia".
"From where I stand, there is reasonable suspicion that the recordings are not authentic. It's my assessment it's a kind of collage with sound-manipulation to discredit me. These are grave accusations which I regret," Vizjak, who served as economy minister in 2004-2008, said on the sidelines of the government's visit to the coast.
The commercial TV station broadcast a 14-year-old recording in which Vizjak is trying to persuade Petan to agree to his terms in the Terme Čatež privatisation story, also by suggesting he should avoid paying taxes and offering him the state and the supervisory board's cooperation.
Vizjak said he suspected the recording was the result of a collaboration of media baron Odlazek and "his business empire, which is also in waste management business".
He said "a collage of several statements" was aired when his ministry sent a bill on environmental protection, which also enjoys the support of NGOs, to the government.
"I cannot explain this to myself other than being an attempt to liquidate me from this post in relation to waste management. The 'garbage mafia' has so far liquidated all ministers when they put forward something that didn't suit them," said Vizjak, adding the bill "means the end to big profits of this garbage mafia".
He also denied ever discussing or negotiating on any interest, cooperation, business or anything else with Petan. "These are really severe accusations. There have also been no results of the acts I'm accused of," he said, adding that he wanted "the truth to come out".
Interior Minister Aleš Hojs said on Twitter he had been notified of the old wiretapped recording a while ago, while at the same time being warned it would be broadcast "at an appropriate time to undermine him and the government".
Hojs said the operation had been managed by Odlazek. "If we read their portals, radio stations and newspapers, everything is clear," he said on Twitter. During the government visit, he added the recording was either a wiretap or a manipulated recording as suggested by Vizjak.
Asked whether he will report it, Hojs said he will after "something happens" with his report against the health minister from 2012. "I've been minister for a year and a half and I have no information what they did with that report."
The opposition Social Democrats (SD) and Left responded to Hojs's tweet, saying it proved Hojs had known about the recording but had not reported it to protect his SDS. Based on the tweet, the opposition will thus supplement the ouster motion against Hojs that it announced last week and is to file it tomorrow.
The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (KPK) meanwhile has no powers to investigate the conversation between Vizjak and Petan because it took so many years ago. However, it believes the government, which has adopted a code of ethics for public office holders, should discuss it.
"If the recordings are authentic, then such action by a public office holder is absolutely unacceptable," KPK said, regretting that persons who possess such recordings or data suggesting breach of law do not hand them to law enforcement or the public immediately or within a period when relevant institutions could still deal with them.
The leaders of the Democrats' (SDS) junior coalition partners meanwhile expect Vizjak to provide "explanations" before deciding how to proceed.
SMC leader Zdravko Počivalšek, economy minister, said that judging by his own experience, "not everything that is broadcast on TV is necessarily true". "I'm used to media murders of one kind or another, so let's wait," he said on the sidelines of the government visit.
Similarly, NSi leader Matej Tonin, defence minister, said the NSi was awaiting "clear and detailed" explanations on the basis of which it will take concrete decisions. "As a citizen I'm obliged to pay taxes, which I do. I'll tell my and the NSi's opinion once we've got the minister's explanations," he said.
STA, 22 September 2021 - Slovenian tobacco prices will rise in November and again in April next year under changed to excise taxes that the government confirmed on Wednesday. A pack of cigarettes will be 4.6% more expensive on average once both rounds of tax increases are implemented.
The government projects annual receipts to increase by EUR 15.6 million annually as a result of the tax hike, which it says pursues both economic and public-health objectives.
The last time tobacco excise rose was in October 2000.
STA, 31 August 2021 - Only a day after putting out a proposal on taxation of trading in cryptocurrencies, the Financial Administration (FURS) said it will amend the proposal amid a strong response from stakeholders to give taxpayers the option to choose between paying tax either on the profits they make or as a percentage of the cryptocurrency they cash in.
FURS initially proposed imposing a 10% tax rate on the amount of cryptocurrency turned into non-virtual currency or spent on goods or services, a proposal that FURS today said met with "extensive response from the interested public".
Having looked into the reactions, FURS now plans to change its proposal so that the taxpayers - individuals who are Slovenian tax residents - can either opt for the 10% tax rate on the amount of the cryptocurrency cashed in or, alternatively, pay a 25% tax on the profit they make.
The tax authority emphasized that the proposal applies only to physical persons who are Slovenian tax residents and not to legal entities.
Under the amended proposal, amounts of up to EUR 15,000 during one calendar year will not have to be reported and will not be taxed.
Given the immense development in virtual currencies in recent years, FURS said the bill sought to respond to the trend at least to some extent and simplify things. It said Slovenia wanted to be the first European country to take such and approach.
FURS offered a calculation demonstrating how two modes of taxation would function in practice. If an individual bought one Bitcoin in 2018 at the price of EUR 3,000 and cashed it in today for EUR 40,000 they would either pay EUR 4,000 tax on the amount sold or a EUR 9,250 capital gains tax.
Commenting on the original proposal in Tuesday's commentary newspaper Finance has calculated that it would mean that if you buy EUR 1,000 worth of Bitcoins and later sell them for EUR 1,100, your profit would be EUR 100 while the tax would be 110 euros.
Under current legislation taxable income from virtual currencies depends on the circumstances of each individual case but as a rule physical persons need to pay capital gains tax from selling cryptocurrencies when they make the income as business.
STA, 31 August 2021 - The newspaper Finance approves of imposing a tax on earnings from cryptocurrencies in Tuesday's commentary, but lambastes the Financial Administration's proposal for a 10% tax on the sale value of cryptocurrencies as being unreasonable.
The paper says there are several arguments in favour of taxing the crypto market, however the direction which the Financial Administration is taking with its proposal is "completely misguided".
"They want to tax 10% of the sales value of cryptocurrencies. This means that if you buy 1,000 euros' worth of Bitcoins and later sell them for 1,100 euros, your profit is 100 euros and the tax 110 euros."
Calling the idea unreasonable, the paper says trading in cryptocurrencies is much like trading in securities; no one buys them to use them as a currency and everyone buys them to sell them for a higher value later on, so there is no reason for traders not to pay tax on capital gains, at the same rate as investors in shares.
The paper says the state has been sending out a wrong message by not taxing trading in cryptocurrencies so far and is sending a wrong one now with a proposal that in many cases means state 'confiscation' of all or almost all profit.
"Since nothing is as bad as it seems let us hope the Finance Ministry will see reason and draw up a normal proposal - so that cryptocurrencies are taxed by profit, just like shares."
STA, 30 August 2021 - The Financial Administration (FURS) has proposed changing how income from cryptocurrencies is being taxed so that a 10% tax rate would be imposed when the cryptocurrency is spent or turned into cash.
The administration proposes the tax, at a rate of 10%, be paid on the amount of cryptocurrency turned into another currency or spent for goods or services.
"We would like to emphasize that it is not profit which would be taxed but rather the amount a Slovenian tax resident receives on their bank account on turning the virtual currency into cash or when buying a thing," said FURS.
They are proposing adopting the new system to tax cryptocurrencies by passing a new law.
It would be a major simplification for FURS as they would no longer need to examine the many transactions the taxpayer has performed in between or how many cryptocurrencies they have bought or sold.
There are currently more than 1,000 different cryptocurrencies, the best known of which are Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Under current legislation taxable income from virtual currencies depends on the circumstances of each individual case, but as a rule physical persons need to pay capital gains tax from selling cryptocurrencies when they make the income as a business.
This typically involves excessive number of transactions, even tens of thousands, but the increasingly digitalised world calls for simple taxation solutions, said FURS.
Under the new solution that is being proposed the taxpayer would have to prove they incurred a loss, which means that all transactions would have to be examined.
STA, 13 April 2021 - The Finance Ministry has drafted a proposal to lower VAT on women's sanitary products from 22% to 9.5%, Finance Minister Andrej Šircelj said on Tuesday answering a question from an MP.
In her initiative, Bojana Muršič of the opposition Social Democrats (SD) says women's sanitary products in Slovenia are subject to the highest of the two VAT rates, while some other hygiene products for general use, such as cotton wool, gauze or nappies, are taxed at 9.5%.
She thus proposed a change to VAT implementation regulations to place women sanitary products among other hygiene products, as EU VAT rules allow for that.
Last month the opposition Left filed to parliament a bill to lower VAT on women's sanitary products to 5%, with the SD's youth and women's wings also supporting the idea.
The initiatives come after some EU member states have already reduced or are planning to reduce what is nicknamed the "tampon tax".
STA, 9 October 2020 - The Constitutional Court has struck down provisions of a 2013 law that impose a 70% tax on income that individuals have been found to have failed to report. The court also declared that tax reassessment cannot be made for cases prior to 2009.
The court, in the ruling declared on Friday, said the taxation rate could not be above the rate for that valid for income proved by the taxpayer. The top tax rate in Slovenia is 50%.
The court also quashed the provision under which such a tax reassessment procedure can be launched for one or several years within ten years prior to the start of the procedure when it could lead to taxation of undeclared income from before 1 January 2009.
The contentious super tax was passed in late 2013 as part of the government's legislative package aimed at combating grey economy. It entered into effect in 2014.
It provided for the 70% tax rate to be imposed on the difference between the actual value of assets and the reported value of assets, as opposed to the average personal income tax rate which had been used until then.
However, since the 70% tax rate also entails a penal element, the court has now established that the law should have also included legal guarantees that the Constitution prescribes for criminal proceedings under article 29 in the tax reassessment procedure.
Since the procedure under the tax procedure act does not provides such guarantees, this section of the super tax law contravenes the constitution.
The court says it is up to the legislator whether to include an element of penal or restitutional nature in the future, but if it does, it would need to take into account basic criminal procedure guarantees in that procedure.
The 2013 law also expanded the period for which suspicious assets could be scrutinised from five to ten years. This provision was now quashed as the retroactive effect of legal acts is prohibited under article 155 of the Constitution.
The legislation was challenged by the Administrative Court over an appeal against the Financial Administration's decision to impose EUR 1 million tax plus interest on the plaintiff for a period between 2008 and 2014.
Based on the decision, persons who have already been slapped with such high tax payments could claim their money back. The procedure has been applied in some of the high-profile cases of alleged corporate crime.
STA, 2 September 2020 - The Finance Ministry has proposed a raising of excise duties that entails a 4.8% increase in the average price of a pack of cigarettes in October. The prices of other tobacco products will also go up, while heat-not-burn products and electronic cigarettes will not be affected. The rise is expected to bring in an additional EUR 18 million a year.
In line with the proposal, to be discussed by the government at one of its forthcoming sessions, excise duty per 1,000 cigarettes will increase from 114 to 120 euros.
The rise, expected to take effect on 1 October, will also affect cigarettes, cigarillos, fine-cut tobacco and other types of smoking tobacco. The duties for heat-not-burn tobacco and electronic cigarette will not change.
Excise duties for tobacco products last increased in June 2019.
STA, 21 July 2020 - Prime Minister Janez Janša has described decisions on the EU's own resources as one of the biggest achievements of the latest marathon summit of the bloc's leaders. In his view digital tax will likely make the biggest potential own resource of the EU.
Janša made the comments after the summit agreed a pandemic recovery package comprising the bloc's next seven-year budget to the tune of EUR 1.074 trillion and a EUR 750 billion recovery fund, of which EUR 390 billion will be in grants and the rest in loans.
Related: Janša Pleased With Results of EU Budget Talks
To allow the European Commission to borrow in the markets to finance the recovery, the headroom - the difference between the own resources ceiling of the long-term budget and the actual spending - has been temporarily increased by 0.6 percentage points.
This pandemic debt, and grants, will have to be repaid, with EU leaders committing to do so by the end of 2058. The increase in the own resources ceiling will now need to be ratified by the national parliaments.
To make the repayment of that debt easier, EU leaders also committed today to work toward reforming the system of own resources in the coming years by introducing new own resources such as a non-recycled plastic tax, to be introduced next year.
The European Commission will also propose a mechanism to tax carbon-intensive industrial imports from third countries, and a digital levy, plus an overhaul of the emissions trading system to expand it to the aviation and maritime industries.
"The subsidies will have to be repaid. One of the major shifts is those few words about own EU resources, because in seven years' time when we negotiate the next budget this will be the key," Janša said, singling out digital tax as likely the biggest potential own resource.
The coronavirus crisis has substantially increased the profits of digital giants, having accelerated a change in lifestyle, the profits that will at least double over the next five years, Janša said, adding that while profits are being generated everywhere, levies are not collected in the EU. "It's as if cars were being refuelled without any excise duty charged."
Janša also emphasized that no single member state could tackle the digital tax and only the EU was big and strong enough to negotiate a global deal for the benefit of all. "When it comes to big giants even the countries they come from have no serious oversight of the profits that are up to trebling in record time."
The Slovenian prime minister noted that he had talked with OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria, pointing to the efforts for a deal on digital tax within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Janša said taking such decisions was not problematic for the Slovenian parliament. Tax on emissions and plastic would be a problem for the countries that have included the resources in their national tax policies.
Although out of the spotlights, the headway on own EU resources is in Janša's view key from the aspect of agreements on all future financial instruments of the EU.
STA, 8 January 2020 - Slovenia's Financial Administration (FURS) collected EUR 17.6 billion in taxes in 2019, which is by EUR 954 million or 5.7% more than in 2018, its early figures show.
The trend has been present ever since FURS was set up with the merger of the national tax and customs administrations in 2014. Since then its tax collection rose by 29%.
Last year all public budgets - the national budget as well as the municipal, pension and health budgets - posted rises in revenue, with excise duties being one of few major taxes the collection of which dropped (-1.1%).
Social security contributions collected - which provide for pension, disability and health insurance and are largely paid directly to the public pension and health funds, but some also to the national budget - increased by 7.2% to over EUR 7 billion.
FURS also collected by 9.4% more taxes on income and profit; a significant rise of 5.9% was recorded in personal income tax, while corporate tax collected rose by 17%.
The VAT take increased by 2.8%.
FURS pointed out in a press release that last year's 5.7% rise in taxes it collected was higher than Slovenia's GDP growth, which reached 2.7% in the first three quarters of the year.
The national revenue service also said that more than 95% of all taxes had been paid voluntarily last year.
It noted another positive trend of a falling tax debt ever since FURS was established. Last year, it dropped by 3.1% to some EUR 1.2 billion, and by 18% since 2014.
All our stories on taxes in Slovenia are here
