Committee on Finance of the Serbian National Assembly has accepted by a majority vote the Draft Amendments to the Law on Excise Duty in principle, by which the introduction of the excise duty on electricity amounting to 7.5 percent is also envisaged as of 1st August.
Only the representative of the opposition Democratic Party (DS), Ivan Jovanović, voted against. He commented that the Draft Amendments to the Law on Excise Duty was not prepared well and that the reason for introducing the excise duty on electricity were badly explained, so he demanded that the draft be withdrawn and that a different solution be prepared if the electricity price must be increased on the request of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Explaining the draft, Assistant Minister of Finance, Nataša Kovačević, said that the excise duty on electricity was also introduced due to the harmonization with the EU. She said that this excise duty would enable an increase in the budget revenue by 17 billion RSD annually.
In the explanation of the draft amendments, the Serbian Government stated that it was estimated that, this year, by collecting the excise on electricity, the budget revenue would be higher by 5.4 billion RSD.
Kovačević specified that the application of the excise rate for electricity consumption was envisaged as of 1st August, which meant that the first payment on that basis would be in September. She explained that the excise was paid on consumed electricity.
Announcing that DS would vote against the Amendments to the Law on Excise Duty, a Member of Parliament from this party, Ivan Jovanović, answered that he believed that the electricity price did not have to be increased, as claimed by the Serbian Government, but he added that, if this was an obligation towards the IMF, he could not see why the excise was introduced and why this was not done by a regular electricity price increase.
He pointed out that referring to the EU directive was wrong, because the provisions to which the Serbian Government was referring when introducing the excise were related to other things, and that the excise suggested by the EU amounted to 0.5 to one euro per megawatt-hour. The envisaged excise in Serbia, as Jovanović indicated, was drastically higher compared to the EU requirement.
Assistant Minister of Finance of Serbia also said that, by the Draft Amendments to the Law on Excise Duty, the introduction of excise duty on electronic cigarette liquid was also envisaged in the amount of four RSD per milliliter, as well as the introduction of excise duty on the so-called smokeless tobacco. , transmits serbia-energy.eu
