Freelancers will be able to choose two models for paying taxes - what the new law proposes
The Ministry of Finance has published a draft of amendments to the Law on Personal Income Tax, which should regulate the status of freelancers, including programmers, language teachers and everyone else who earns money on the Internet. From January 1, they should have the option to pay income tax according to two models, which they will be able to choose for themselves.
Programmers, foreign language teachers, YouTubers, Tiktokers. These and other workers on the Internet - collectively called freelancers - have so far been invisible to the Serbian tax system and without any rights. As of January 1, that should change. With the proposed changes to the law, they will be able to pay taxes according to two models.
The first model covers all freelancers who earn up to RSD 96,000 per quarter. They will not pay any taxes and contributions, except for health, which will amount to 1,400 dinars per month.
If someone who chooses the first model exceeds that 96,000 dinars, he will pay PIO, health and income tax.
The second model is intended for freelancers who have more permanent and higher incomes. The non-taxable part is 19,300 dinars per month, or 57,900 per quarter. And 34 percent of standardized expenses will be deducted from the gross income - operating costs, electricity, internet - and 10 percent of income tax, health and PIO will be paid on the rest.
The total levies to the state according to the second model will amount to about 20 percent. This amount includes tax for health and pension insurance, as well as income tax.
"Freelancers will not have to register in the APR or in another register, they will pay their obligations by accessing a specific portal that the Government will provide and by choosing the model they will get the instruction how to pay taxes - will they be exempt from tax or not, and will do so at the end of each quarter in the first month of the following quarter," explains Uroš Radenković, legal representative of the Association of Freelancers and Entrepreneurs of Serbia.
The health insurance paid by the freelancers will last for six months and in this way other family members can be insured as well.
First applications in April 2023
Dragan Agatunović from the Tax Administration expects that the first tax applications for natural persons, so-called freelancers, will be submitted in April 2023 and for the first quarter of the following year.
"The Tax Administration, on the basis of the law that will be adopted, is preparing to enable the submission of that application and taxation in accordance with the law with IT support," says Agatunović.
However, it has not yet been specified how the Tax Administration will monitor who has paid tax and who has not.
As we learn, the tax payment decisions that the Tax Administration started sending two years ago for outstanding levies retroactively, and which caused protests by freelancers, will be cancelled.
With the new legal solution, the status of freelancers will be regulated after two years of negotiations with the Government of Serbia. In NALED, they expect additional changes to the regulations.
"These other insurances based on incapacity for work, child care, maternity leave - we hope that it will be made possible in the next period when the next revision of these regulations will be carried out and when in the meantime they will have some experience in this taxation system", emphasizes Dušan Vasiljević from NALED.
Amendments to the law on personal income tax and the law on mandatory social insurance contributions should be in the parliamentary procedure in the coming weeks.
Upon their adoption, a by-law will be adopted that will regulate the taxation of freelancers in more detail.
Source: rts.rs