Tax Police and Tax Crime in Serbia

Abstract

In Serbia, the detection of tax crimes is the responsibility of the Tax Administration, and these tasks are performed by the Tax Police, which acts as an body of pre-investigation procedure, in the sense of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Tax Police inspectors, as authorized officials of the Ministry of Finance, are powered to take certain measures and actions to collect information and evidence, which may be of importance for criminal proceedings for tax crimes. The paper made a critical analysis of the legal framework of the Tax Police actions in detecting tax crimes, the result of which shows that the powers of Tax Police inspectors are not adequately regulated, nor harmonized with the powers and duties that the police have in the pre-investigation procedure for other crimes, so certain proposals for legislative intervention were made.