34th Session of the Joint Committee for Economic and Financial Policies PDPFBiH

The 34. session of the Joint Committee for Economic and Financial Development of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of FBiH was held yesterday, on February 24, 2014. The session started at 1 pm and finished at 3:30 pm.

The Committee had a quorum and numerous representatives of relevant ministries, persons who submitted particular proposals and guests, including a representative of the Institute for Youth Development KULT.

The agenda of the session contained the following items:

1. Proposal of the law on amendments to the Law on Penalty Interest Rate on Public Revenues;
2. Proposal of the law to supplement the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance of FBiH;
3. Proposal of the law on domestic payments;
4. Law on Takeover of Joint-Stock Companies;
5. Draft Law on Factoring;
6. Proposal of Decision on receiving funds pursuant to the Agreement on Financial Cooperation between the Council of Ministers and the Government of the Republic of Austria for funding the project of providing medical equipment for a public health care institution – Cantonal hospital in GoraĹľde;
7. Information on submitted initiative for providing an authentic interpretation of Article 12, clause 5 of the Income Tax Law, and Article 32, clause 5 of the Regulation on Application of the Income Tax Law;
8. Current issues.

We were most interested in the following items on the agenda: Našu pažnju najviše su privukle sljede?e dvije ta?ke dnevnog reda:

• The Proposal of the law on domestic payments was severely criticised, significant changes were proposed and the proposal was sent back to the Federal Ministry of Finance (proponent of the law) for additional drafting, along with instructions to include the changes proposed during the session.
• The authentic opinion gave rise to an important discussion on the enforcement of the Income Tax Law. The Federal Ministry of Finance provided its opinion on Article 12, clause 5 of the law, which according to many members of the Committee does not reflect the spirit of the Law. The competent Ministry was instructed to review the legitimacy of the actions of the Tax Administration within 30 days. Should they not comply, the Committee will send an initiative to the Parliament for an authentic interpretation of this Article.

Discussion on other issues were also focused on improving the law drafts. In the case of the Law on Factoring, the Committee members were invited to deliver timely proposals to facilitate procedural steps of adopting this law, which will be passed for the first time in the history of financial regulation in FBiH.

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