The government determined the text of The draft law on solidarity tax. This tax should act as a redistributive measure, with which companies that have made excess profits due to unexpected circumstances, will proportionally contribute to mitigating the energy crisis in the internal market.

This solidarity tax should be calculated retroactively, that is, according to the achieved parameters in 2022. Constitutional experts for "Sloboden Pechat" say that he can easily find himself before constitutional judges, because retroactivity can mean legal uncertainty for businessmen. The Minister of Finance, Fatmir Besimi pac considers that the solidarity tax is in accordance with the Constitution, because social responsibility is one of the constitutional provisions. He pointed out that this is a one-time solution and is also recommended by the EU.

"Free Press" got to the Bill. It states that the person liable for the solidarity tax is the person liable for the profit tax in accordance with the Law on the Profit Tax, who in 2022 achieved a total income greater than MKD 615.000.000. (10 million euros). The exception is the companies that started working in 2022, unless the start of the activity is the result of the performed status change, or if the company stopped performing activity without performing a status change.

The solidarity tax rate is 30 percent. The comparative period is 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021, and the financial result of 2020 is not taken into account, as a particularly crisis year. The law provides for two options. In the first one, extra profit is taxed, and that is everything that is realized as a profit greater than 20 percent in 2022 compared to the average of 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. In the second case, if the average profit for 2021 and 2022 is lower than that of 2022, then the comparison is made with an average of three years: 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The tax liability for solidarity tax occurs by submitting the tax balance for taxation with profit tax to the Administration for Public Revenues. The IRS, on the other hand, controls the method of calculating and paying the solidarity tax.

Companies that will not submit calculations for the solidarity tax, depending on the size, will be fined from 3.000 to 10.000 euros, and the fine for the responsible person is from 200 to 500 euros. The same penalty is provided if the tax is not paid on time or if there are wrong data.

The taxpayer is obliged to pay the solidarity tax no later than April 1, 2023.

By the way, while the proposal was being written, it was foreseen that the by-laws would be adopted by February 1, 2023 at the latest, but the law has not been adopted yet, so it is unclear how its implementation will start on time.

The Government pointed out that several countries in the world have introduced or announced that they will introduce the so-called extra profit tax – Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Germany. The introduction of this tax has a solidarity function and will provide financial resources that will be fully used to finance the Program for measures to deal with the crisis.

Last year Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres Mrand called on governments to consider "solidarity taxation" of individuals who made their fortunes during the coronavirus pandemic.

– We need to ensure that the money is channeled where it is most needed. The latest reports signal that the wealth of the world's richest people jumped by $5.000 trillion over the past year, Guterres said at the UN meeting on financing development, which took place in April 2022.