UNMIK/PR/495
PRISTINA---SRSG Hans Haekkerup announced today that early next UNMIK will set up Tax Collection Offices on the Administrative Boundary Lines with Serbia, in co-operation with KFOR and the UNMIK Police. Tax Collection Offices already exist on the borders with Macedonia and Albania and on the administrative boundary line with Montenegro.
The authorities in Belgrade have been informed of the intended measure. At the beginning of this week, Belgrade had set up Tax Collection Points on its side of the Administrative Boundary Line.
The UNMIK Customs Service has recruited and trained staff and will now open four new posts plus a Tax Collection Office in Mitrovica.. In the future, all commercial traffic traveling from or through Serbia will only be permitted to enter Kosovo through one of the new entry points, where UNMIK Tax Collection points are located. Drivers of commercial vehicles wanting to enter through other points will be turned back. The Tax Collection Offices on the Administrative Boundary Line will be manned 24 hours a day.
All persons bringing commercial goods into Kosovo from any other source will from now on have to pay the duties and charges applicable under the current UNMIK regulations, i.e. import duties and excise taxes.
“This is an important improvement to the revenue collection capacity and for the development of a professional tax collection service for Kosovo”, said Mr Tony Preston-Stanley, the Co-Head of the Central Fiscal Authority (CFA). “Since last year we have noticed an increasing amount of imports coming from or through Serbia and this has been placing at risk the ability to maintain the Kosovo Consolidated Budget for 2001. We now have most of the staff we require, their initial training has been completed and facilities are already in place in some locations. There is no longer any reason to delay this action.”
The UNMIK tax collection staff will be located at the entry points near Podujevo, Gjilane and in the Customs House in Mitrovica. For a short time, international personnel will be located at the entry points at Gate 1 and Gate Ten. The UNMIK Tax Collection Service will be launching a new campaign to recruit Kosovar Serbs and other residents of the Mitrovica area to take over this role as soon as possible. Advertisements will be published in the near future.