Due to poor controls, as many as 53 percent of those renting out private accommodation to tourists have consistently failed respect the law. Will new, more strict laws alter the situation?
As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 10th of October, 2018, athough under statutory obligations, private accommodation landlords must pay certain fees to their local tourist boards, as many as 53 percent of private accommodation owners, a rough total of around 100,000, have never even paid one kuna in such fees. This purposeful avoidance of payment has not been sanctioned purely owing to poor controls.
“If we include those who haven’t been paying for it until now, it will result in three million kuna on the account per year,” Tonči Glavina, State Secretary at the Ministry of Tourism, stated.
Namely, according to current laws, renters pay their membership fees according to their respective realised income and in accordance to the tourist ”class” in which their accommodation is located.
According to the proposal of the new law, providers of private tourist accommodation (renters) will have to pay a lump sum according to the number of beds or accommodation units in their possession at the same time as sojourn tax is paid.
The membership fee amounts will be prescribed by the Minister. Glavina went on to explain that the collection of these membership fees, which will now be a more simplified process, is crucial for continental tourism, which couldn’t function from the income of sojourn tax alone because these destinations have little traffic, especially when compared to the tourist traffic in coastal Croatia.
Otherwise, the biggest part of the funds for financing the systems of the country’s tourist boards, which amounts to about 680 million kuna per year, is secured from these membership fees, and also from sojourn tax.
Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik
