Sara Ostojić

Senior Associate

In the Official Gazette no. 138/2022 from December 12, 2022, amendments to the Law on Value Added Tax (“Law“) have been introduced.

Overview of important amendments to the Law is presented below:

• Certain events in which a foreign person who trades goods and services in the Republic of Serbia is not obliged to appoint a tax representative in the Republic of Serbia and to be registered for the obligation to pay VAT have been regulated, and it is prescribed that the aforementioned exemption from the obligation also applies to the trade of goods that are in the procedure of customs storage in accordance with customs regulations;
• The market value of goods and services is considered to be the total amount that the buyer of goods or the recipient of services would pay at the time of the sale of goods or services to an independent supplier for trade in the Republic of Serbia. Additionally, if the market value cannot be determined for specific goods or services, the market value is determined for similar goods or services, and if it cannot be determined in that way, the market value is considered to be the value determined on the basis of the following criteria: (i) for the sale of goods, an amount that is not lower than the purchase price of those or similar goods, and if that price is unknown, the total amount of costs determined at the time of delivery; and (ii) for the turnover of services, an amount that is not lower than the total amount of the determined costs of providing the service borne by the taxpayer.
• The tax base for the turnover of goods and services is regulated in the case of: (i) exchange for a multi-purpose value voucher (when the base represents the fee paid for the multi-purpose value voucher, and if there is no information about such fee, the base is monetary value stated on the multi-purpose voucher itself); (ii) transactions between persons who are considered affiliated in the sense of this law, with a fee that is lower than the market value, where the acquirer does not have the right to deduct the previous tax in full (when the base is considered to be market value of such goods, i.e. services, without VAT); (iii) the turnover of electricity carried out by the VAT payer – the supplier, to the buyer of the producer of electricity from renewable energy sources (when the base is considered to be the amount of compensation for the consumed electricity determined in accordance with the law regulating the use of renewable energy sources, without VAT);
• When it comes to the conditions for deducting previous tax, it was clarified that the electronic invoice that was accepted, i.e. which is considered to be accepted in accordance with by the law regulating electronic invoicing shall be considered as “invoice”, whereas if the electronic invoice is accepted until deadline for submitting tax return application for tax period in which the tax liability arose, the taxpayer can exercise the right to deduct the previous tax at the earliest for the tax period in which the tax liability is incurred arose, regardless of whether the electronic invoice was issued on the date of the tax liability or after that day, which removed the doubt regarding the possibility of issuing electronic invoices at the end of the calendar month for the goods delivered, i.e. services provided in that month, and at the latest until the end the deadline for submitting the VAT return for that month;
• The taxpayer is obliged to notify the tax authority in electronic form on changes to the data from the registration application which are important for the calculation and payment of VAT, within five days from the date of the change, as well as to submit a notification of certain information electronically, instead of the previous way of notifying the tax authority in writing.

Entry into force

Although the amendments and supplements to Law entered into force on the eighth day of their publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, i.e. on December 20, 2022, the new provisions of the Law shall apply from January 1, 2023.

This article is to be considered as exclusively informative, with no intention to provide legal advice. If you should need additional information, please contact us directly.