In an effort to ensure more equity in personal income taxation, the Croatian Government adopted a new, amended Personal Income Tax Act that entered into force on 1 March 2012. The new amendments should provide a basis for increasing the net income for lower income categories and reducing the net income for higher income groups. As a result of increasing the personal allowances and of changes in tax brackets, the general government budget revenues are expected to fall by about HRK 340 million annually, thus increasing the disposable income of households. Moreover, the Government has introduced a new taxable income category, i.e. dividends and profit sharing proceeds, as well as a tax on the pension supplement, which now becomes part of the pension. It has also introduced the taxation of foreign pensions in the same manner as domestic pensions.

Slavko Bezeredi in new Newsletter entitled Impact of personal income tax changes on citizens’ tax burden will try to establish whether these changes will meet Government expectations and who the winners and losers are in the new tax scheme.

In the first issue of Financial Theory and Practice in 2012 you can read the awarded papers for the Prof.dr.sc. Marijan Hanžeković Foundation Awards for 2011. The award in the regular category was won by Lei Hou and Jiarui Zhang for the paper Multiple finances, margins of foreign direct investment and aggregate industry productivity. The paper by Alen Džanić Concentration of ownership and corporate performance: evidence from the Zagreb Stock Exchange won the student category award. The new issue also contains article by Denis Alajbeg, Zoran Bubaš and Velimir Šonje The efficient market hypothesis: problems with interpretations of empirical tests, offering the view that the hypothesis of the market efficiency is not liable to criticism and empirical testing due to the principal approach to the definition of informationally efficient market and the concept of market efficiency demands significant broadenings. Ana Andabaka Badurina and Sandra Švaljek offer the insight in contemporary manner of controlling public debt, describe challenges set upon the public debt management during the global crisis and immediately after it and show how those challenges were dealt with in the Netherlands, Ireland and Hungary in the paper Public debt management before, during and after the crisis.

Marin Šulentić has prepared the review of the book by Anto Bajo, Marko Primorac and Ana Andabaka Badurina Osnove upravljanja javnim dugom (Basis of the Public Debt Management).

You can order the new copy in the Webshop.