TIN revocation

The concept of TIN, its use in the procedure and documents into which it is entered, the taxpayers who are required to have a TIN, the procedure, method, and deadlines for its determination, as well as the reasons for TIN revocation, are all outlined in the Law on Tax Procedure and Tax Administration, the Rulebook on Tax Identification Number, and the Rulebook on the Allocation of Tax Identification Number to legal entities, entrepreneurs, and other entities for whose registration the Business Registers Agency is competent.

First of all, the Law on Tax Procedure and Tax Administration (Serbian: ZPPPA) stipulates that TIN cannot be allocated under the following circumstances:

• Legal entity whose Founder, i.e. member (hereinafter: Founder) – legal entity, entrepreneur or a natural person, has immediate but outstanding liabilities based on public revenues arising from the performance of activities, i.e. if the legal entity or entrepreneur whose TIN has been temporarily revoked in accordance with this Law. In accordance with the ZPPPA, a TIN cannot also be allocated to a legal company whose Founder – a legal entity, entrepreneur, or a natural person, is at the same time the founder of an entity whose PIB has been temporarily revoked;

• Legal entity whose Founder is a natural person who is at the same time the Founder of another business entity that has outstanding liabilities based on public revenues arising from the performance of activities;

• Legal entity resulting from a change in division upon establishment, i.e. mixed division in accordance with the law regulating companies, i.e. status changes of special organizational structures, if the legal entity, as well as the fund that is the subject of division, has outstanding liabilities based on public revenues, i.e. if their TIN has been temporarily revoked in accordance with the ZPPPA;

• Entrepreneur who has immediate, but outstanding liabilities based on public revenues incurred in connection with the performance of activities in other companies in which he or she is a Founder with a share of more than 5%, i.e. if their TIN has been temporarily revoked in accordance with this Law.

Given the fact that the Business Registers Agency allocates TIN to the majority of legal entities, ZPPPA stipulates that TIN will be issued within the legally specified period and that there will be no previous verification of the compliance with these requirements.

The TIN revocation can occur if the Tax Administration determines during the control procedure, i.e. during the verification procedure based on data from official records, that at the time of TIN allocation there were some of the above-listed obstacles for the TIN allocation, in which case the Tax Administration will temporarily revoke the allocated TIN by a Decision.

Regardless of the tax debt, the Tax Administration also has the right to revoke your TIN in a situation where, based on the data from its records and the records of other competent authorities, it determines that the application requesting the allocation of the TIN contains data that is not credible or if there have been imposed protective measuresagainst the founder of the entity referred to in that paragraph, i.e. security measures prohibiting the performance of activities in misdemeanor or criminal proceedings. The most prevalent instance of this is when the Tax Administration concludes that a legal entity’s registered office is fictitious, after an attempted delivery of a letter to the registered office address was unsuccessful.

This means that if the taxpayer fails to report data changes relating to the information stated in the initial registration application, i.e. fails to submit documentation and provide information required by the Tax Administration within five days of the date of the data change, i.e. from the day of receiving the request for submission of documentation and information, the Tax Administration will, by decision, revoke the TIN allocated to the taxpayer.

The Tax Administration, by Decision, revokes the TIN allocated to the taxpayer until they fulfill the requirements from Article 25 Items 1 and 3 of the Law, and submits a copy of the Decision to the bank and the organization responsible for forced collection from funds on the taxpayers account.

The Tax Administration, by Decision, also revokes the allocated TIN in cases when the taxpayer is prohibited from disposing of funds through the taxpayer’s bank account pursuant to Articles 66 and 87 of this Law, and when that prohibition lasts longer than a year (Article 26 Paragraph 13 of the Law). In that instance, the bank is required to suspend the execution of the taxpayer’s request for the transfer of funds from the taxpayer’s account from the time the Decision is received, unless it is for the purpose of settling tax liabilities and secondary tax duties.

In that case of TIN revocation, the Tax Administration notifies the bank where the taxpayer has a current account, and the bank is required to suspend the execution of the taxpayer’s request for the transfer of funds from the taxpayer’s account from the time the Decision is received, unless it is for the purpose of settling tax liabilities and secondary tax duties.

   What are the consequences of a revoked TIN

The temporary confiscation of the TIN represents the inability to identify the taxpayer, which means that issuing invoices, submitting prescribed tax returns, issuing tax statements, issuing fiscal excerpts, and any payment transaction instrument by which the payment transaction holder is ordered to perform any transaction in the payment transfer, which actually means that the taxpayer is prevented from performing the activity, are all rendered impossible.

In addition, no changes of the data in the APR are allowed:

• Change of information about the Founder or member of the company;
• Change of the address;
• Change in the organizational structure;
• Cessation of business activities temporarily or permanently,

until the Tax Administration informs the APR the TIN has been allocated back.