Finance Minister Slavko Linic has announced that his ministry will soon make public a list of tax defaulters after it amends the general tax legislation to make the publication possible.
"We will probably amend Article 8 of the General Tax Law and see to it that the confidentiality does not refer to those who are tax defaulters, and data will be made public on the finance ministry's web sites," Linic told reporters in the Croatian parliament on Wednesday.
Asked when the publication of tax defaulters' list could be expected, the minister said that the government would probably prepare the draft bill for the beginning of the next parliamentary session.
Linic said that the government would tomorrow send to parliament the draft legislation on financial operations, adding that members of the government who work on the bankruptcy law would convene tomorrow.
Asked by reporters about the government's position on the announced boycott of petrol stations in protest against fuel price hikes, Linic said that he deemed acceptable every citizen initiative, including this one against rising fuel prices.
Former Finance Minister Ivan Suker of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) told reporters that the possible announcement of tax defaulters should not be an issue for political bickering and that the tax legislation should be amended for that purpose.
"If I am a debtor, I see no reason to be protected by anyone. So, the tax law should be amended. If the parliament adopts such a decision, let make public who is the defaulter and why," Suker said.
The HDZ leader Jadranka Kosor said later that her party would support the publication of tax defaulters provided that Finance Minister Linic found a formula, which would not be overruled by the Constitutional Court, for such publication.
"Then question is how the minister is going to do that, as the current regulations make it impossible," Kosor told reporters in the parliament.
Asked whether she was sorry about her cabinet having failed to make public tax defaulters, Kosor said that she had been the first for publishing the names of the defaulters, but that her cabinet had been told that it was impossible to do.
"The same experts in the finance ministry who are now working with Minister Linic interpreted to us that it was impossible," Kosor said adding that she was eager to see what Minister Linic would do.
