The project “Development of the Tax Administration in the Republic of Croatia” comprised a series of works embracing the theory and practice of tax administrations in contemporary societies, the history of the development of the tax administration and the contemporary tax administration in Croatia, certain matters of organisation and standards, the problems of fiscal supervision, fiscal decentralization, and compliance costs.
Contemporary tax administrations tend to be more taxpayer-oriented and focus on employee specialization, independence from the finance ministry and the privatization of those activities that can be better handled by the private sector. In order to realize these trends, in many countries tax administration reforms have been set in motion. Such reforms tend to address certain key problems, such as low wages and the consequent difficulties in attracting quality staff, corruptibility, and the complexity and opacity of the tax laws. The highlights of most reforms include a functional organization of the tax administration, setting up special services to communicate with taxpayers and special branches for very large taxpayers, the reduction of tax revenue collection costs, and the prevention of tax evasion.
The contemporary Croatian Tax Administration is organized in accordance with the most up-to-date theoretical and practical achievements. The Tax Administration Act contains more-or-less the same provisions as the acts of other contemporary countries. In practice, however, certain problems tend to emerge because the tax officials frequently do not act in line with the laws, but according to various regulations, instructions and interpretations that might, but do not always, correspond to what is written in the laws.
The project gathered a group of authors and collaborators from the Institute of Public Finance, the Ministry of Finance, the Faculty of Law, the Economics Institute and the Croatian National Bank with the aim of promoting a group of young experts who will be able to deal with these topics in a quality and professional manner in the long term.