{"id":19632,"date":"2019-03-14T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/tax-authority-checks-juzne-vesti-but-not-televisions-connected-with-gasic\/"},"modified":"2019-09-12T14:01:59","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T12:01:59","slug":"tax-authority-checks-juzne-vesti-but-not-televisions-connected-with-gasic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/tax-authority-checks-juzne-vesti-but-not-televisions-connected-with-gasic\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax Authority Checks Ju\u017ene Vesti, but Not Televisions Connected with Ga\u0161i\u0107"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a tax inspector came to Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> in November 2017, it seemed like that would be just another check-up of the business of this independent Ni\u0161-based media outlet. Between 2013 and November 2017, tax inspectors visited Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> on three occasions, to check their business documentation and whether their computers had legal software. The visits always ended with the same outcome \u2013 no irregularities found.<\/p>

However, the inspections that followed were different. The inspection initiated in 2017 never got its official epilogue, while in early February 2018 inspectors started a new check of the calculation and payment of taxes and contributions.<\/p>

\u201cThe inspector asked that all the contracts we have with international organizations, such as the OSCE, the European Union and the like, be pulled out and then he took those documents and visited some partners and waved [the papers] at them, presenting us as spies and foreign mercenaries,\u201c Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> Director Vitomir Ognjanovi\u0107<\/strong> paraphrased the encounters with the inspectors.<\/p>

In his words, the business partners did not back out, although some of them were scared.<\/p>

Aleksandar Stankov<\/strong>, the daily\u2019s deputy editor in chief, said that everyone at the office had been on the alert during the checks.<\/p>

\u201cWe are a young office and this is the first time all of us have encountered something so serious. Even though no one has said anything to you as a journalist, you feel this pressure,\u201d Stankov said.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a>

Ju\u017ene Vesti Director Vitomir Ognjanovi\u0107, photo: CINS<\/p><\/div>

Journalism organizations quickly reacted, and after them Prime Minister Ana Brnabi\u0107<\/strong> as well, who said that \u201cif there is no indication that the tax check-up needs to be additionally expanded, then it should be completed as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>

At that time, inspectors were checking nine years\u2019 business of Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em>, i.e. the work it had done since its founding. That period was not covered in any other media outlet in Ni\u0161. Furthermore, the tax inspectors checked the Ni\u0161ka Televizija<\/em> TV the longest ahead of its privatization, when they went through the broadcaster\u2019s operations over a span of four years.<\/p>

Not long after the prime minister\u2019s reaction, in late April 2018 the Tax Administration wrapped up the check. Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> was ordered to pay an alleged debt of a million dinars because the former editor, Predrag Blagojevi\u0107<\/strong>, had not been employed full-time. The inspectors cited the Catalogue of Jobs in Public Services and Other Public Sector Organizations as grounds for charging the sum, but it remained unclear how that document could be applied to a private media outlet.<\/p>

The Ministry of Finance in the summer of 2018 issued a warning ahead of enforced collection, but the money has not been taken out of Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em>\u2019s account to date.<\/p>

Nemanja Nenadi\u0107<\/strong> of the Transparency Serbia<\/em> organization told the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia<\/em> (CINS) that checking nine years of business of the Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> founders was a good illustration of unjustified obstruction of media work. That is additionally confirmed by the fact that no irregularities were discovered, except in one case, where the law was obviously misinterpreted, said Nenadi\u0107.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Selective Tax Checks<\/h2>

Although government representatives denied that any pressure had been put on this media outlet and presented the entire inspection as regular, the minutes on performed tax inspections of media, which CINS analyzed, show the opposite.<\/p>

In the Ni\u0161ava District, which encompasses the city of Ni\u0161 and six other municipalities, in the period from January 2012 to February 2018 besides Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> checks were carried out at the Belle Amie, K:<\/em>:CN<\/em> and Ni\u0161ka Televizija<\/em> televisions, the former RTV Zona<\/em>, and the Narodne Novine<\/em> newspaper. Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> and K:<\/em>:CN<\/em> TV were checked four times each, Belle Amie<\/em> TV three times, while Narodne Novine <\/em>had one tax inspection.<\/p>

Inspectors visited RTV Zona<\/em> once until 2013, when it ceased to exist. In 2014 its place was taken by the Zona Plus<\/em> television, owned by Vladan Ga\u0161i\u0107<\/strong>, son of Bratislav<\/strong> Ga\u0161i\u0107<\/strong>, director of the Security Information Agency. From its founding to the beginning of 2018 Zona Plus<\/em> was not checked by tax inspectors.<\/p>

Ni\u0161ka Televizija<\/em> had a similar situation, and was the subject of inspection twice prior to privatization. In the 2015 privatization it was purchased by a consortium headed by Sla\u0111ana Ostoji\u0107<\/strong>, the director and editor in chief of Ga\u0161i\u0107\u2019s Zona Plus<\/em>. From that moment to the beginning of 2018 tax inspectors did not check this television either.<\/p>

\u201cAny situation where it is noticeable that companies doing the same type of business and operating in the same area are checked to a varying extent and with varying frequency justifiably causes suspicion that the state does not treat everyone equally,\u201d Nenadi\u0107 explains.<\/p>

 <\/p>

\"\"<\/p>

Journalist Tamara Skrozza<\/strong> believes that any unequal treatment is in fact pressure on the media. In the case of Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em>, laws are applied selectively, while a strict approach is used only on those who are not to the current government\u2019s liking.<\/p>


She adds that it is not just about persistent multi-month inspections, but also open threats against media\u2019s business partners.<\/p>

\u201cJust like in the case of Vranjske<\/em>, in parallel with inspections simultaneous pressure is exerted from various sides, whereby people are exhausted, financially, mentally and healthwise \u2013 until they give up,\u201d Skrozza explains.<\/p>

The Tax Administration did not answer CINS journalists\u2019 questions.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Unclear Inspection Criteria<\/h2>

A comparison between the number of checks and the revenue the media had leads to the conclusion that in four years, from 2014 to 2018, Ju\u017ene Vesti,<\/em> along with RTV Zona<\/em>, had the lowest revenue of all, but were at the top in terms of the number of checks.<\/p>

Tax officers checked Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> and K:<\/em>:CN<\/em> TV equally, i.e. four times each. However, the revenues of these two media are not comparable. In a four-year period, the total revenue of Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em>, i.e. of its owner, the Simplicity company<\/em>, totaled 114.7 million dinars. During that time, the Kopernikus Cable Network<\/em>, which broadcasts K:<\/em>:CN<\/em>, posted revenue of over 1.9 billion dinars, i.e. 16 times higher.<\/p>

Nearly all the checks were conducted in that period. Before that, in 2012, inspectors visited Belle Amie<\/em>, while in 2013 they visited the former RTV Zona<\/em>.<\/p>

The owner of K:<\/em>:CN<\/em> TV is Zvezdan Milovanovi\u0107<\/strong>, the Serbian Progressive Party<\/em> commissioner for Ni\u0161 and the brother of Sr\u0111an Milovanovi\u0107<\/strong>, who in late 2018 bought two national free-to-air televisions \u2013 O2<\/em> and Prva<\/em>.<\/p>

 <\/p>

\"\"
\u00a0<\/p>

Nenadi\u0107 says that it is important that the Tax Administration inform the public about what objective criteria it used for checking certain Ni\u0161-based media, so as to eliminate any suspicion.<\/p>

\u201cThe fact that Kopernikus<\/em>\u2019 turnover was 16 times higher than the turnover of the founder of Ju\u017ene Vesti <\/em>does not mean the Tax Administration should have visited the founder of K:<\/em>:CN<\/em> 16 times more. Both could have been subjected to the same number of checks. However, in that case it would have been reasonable to expect that other media, which are somewhere between these two in terms of financial strength, would be checked to the same extent,\u201d says Nenadi\u0107.<\/p>

Concern that tax inspections are being used to put pressure on \u201cdisobedient\u201d media was also conveyed in the European Commission\u2019s document on Serbia\u2019s progress in chapters 23 and 24 in the negotiations with the European Union.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Pressure Shut Down Vranjske Weekly<\/h2>

\u201cI think we were meant to serve as a demonstration. So, if they could invent a fine for us, what will some smaller media outlet do if they calculate a multimillion debt? It has nowhere to pay it from and it will shut down,\u201d Vitomir Ognjanovi\u0107 pointed out.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Nontransparent Work of Tax Inspectors<\/h2>

The Tax Administration has in several cases demonstrated a lack of willingness to provide data on media checks. The documentation CINS analyzed a Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> journalist received only after he had complained to the Commissioner for information of public importance. A CINS journalist had also requested minutes on the tax inspections of the most important national media, in line with the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, but the tax authority rejected that request. The commissioner is still in the process of deciding on an appeal against the decision.<\/p>


Due to the non-delivery of documentation and the Tax Administration\u2019s refusal to answer questions, it cannot be determined whether similar practice also appears in cases of the media that have the biggest influence over citizens.<\/p>

The Transparency Serbia <\/em>organization in late 2018 unveiled the results of research on inspection oversight of the media. Like the CINS and Ju\u017ene Vesti<\/em> journalists, Transparency also faced the Tax Administration\u2019s refusal to submit information.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

Vuka\u0161in Obradovi\u0107<\/strong>, the former owner of the Vranjske <\/em>weekly, agrees with that statement.
\u201cInstitutional pressure on local media is much more effective than where big media are concerned, because even the fines that, conditionally speaking, seem small are a noose around the neck,\u201d Obradovi\u0107 told CINS.<\/p>

The Vranje-based weekly was also subjected to pressure until it was shut down in September 2017, after several inspections. Obradovi\u0107 says problems started after the presidential election that year, because public companies stopped advertising in the weekly, most local officials stopped giving statements to the weekly, while funds from a media competition shrunk conspicuously relative to previous years. At the peak of the pressure, in the period between August and September 2017, Vranjske<\/em> was first checked by the Labor Inspectorate and then by the tax police. Even though, according to him, the goal had been to find machinations, all they found were bookkeeping omissions.<\/p>

\u201cWe received a decision whereby we were handed, altogether on various grounds, a 450,000 dinar fine. There was no tax evasion, rather they found some irregularities, e.g. improperly filled out travel order forms and late payments,\u201d Obradovi\u0107 explains.<\/p>

Vuka\u0161in made the decision to shut down the weekly because he saw no way out of the situation he had found himself in. He says he could have laid off the majority of employees, reduced the number of pages and turned the weekly from an actual printed publication into mere d\u00e9cor. He didn\u2019t want to do that.<\/p>

\u201cDuring the Milo\u0161evi\u0107 regime and in the years after October 5 (2000) we hoped the situation in the media space would change and be better. However, as time passed, it turned out I was wrong. That lack of hope that change might happen on the Serbian media stage in the near future is one of the main reasons for the shutdown of Vranjske<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>

The story was produced within the project supported by the ‘Freedom of Expression and Public Informing’ Programme of the Open Society Foundation Serbia<\/a>.<\/em><\/h6>
\u00a0From November 2018 to September 2019 the work of CINS is supported by Sweden, within the Belgrade Open School program “Civil Society as a Force for a Change in <\/a><\/em>the Serbia’s<\/em><\/a> EU Accession Process.”<\/em><\/a><\/h6>

\"\"<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Ju\u017ene Vesti newspaper has over the past five years often been the target of tax inspectors, the Ni\u0161-based televisions connected with Bratislav Ga\u0161i\u0107\u2019s son Vladan did not undergo such checks until 2018. The Tax Administration documentation which Ju\u017ene Vesti received and CINS analyzed, indicates that the manner in which tax inspectors checked this media outlet \u2013 was a form of pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1123,"featured_media":22141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1578,1492,1577],"tags":[1641,1640],"class_list":["post-19632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financing-the-media","category-investigative-stories","category-pressures-on-journalists","tag-juzne-vesti-en","tag-media","ciTrackContent"],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/big_1552548098__jv-1.png","author_additional":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19632"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22618,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632\/revisions\/22618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}