ANALYSIS
The Need to Improve the Law on
Donations and Sponsorships
One of AmCham Macedonia’s key priorities is to advance the state of companies’ engagement in and
commitment to corporate social responsibility. Having a functional law that encourages such practices
is a key step toward achieving this goal. Thus, AmCham Macedonia recently joined a call led by AmCham member, Konekt for the Government to continue a process to improve the Law on Donations
and Sponsorships. The call was distributed to a number of relevant State institutions in early September
and recommended that the Law be amended to provide:
• A precise definition and interpretation of all key
terms used in the Law, such as: “donors”, “recipients”, “advertisement” and “promotion”.
Also the terms “public activity” and “public interest” are inconsistent with the specific relevant
criteria attributed to them. A thorough revision
and consolidation with other relevant laws is required.
• A simplified administrative
procedure for determining
whether something is “in the
public interest” and utilizing tax benefits. The current
procedure required to take advantage of tax benefits related to donations is overly complicated. Donors are required
to prove whether a donation
is “in the public interest” (instead of recipients, as in most
systems), there is considerable amount of paperwork and prior approvals are required. Thus the
hassle of the procedure is inconsistent with the
nature of donations, discouraging its use. The
procedure also lacks legal certainty since the definition of “public interest” is open to subjective
interpretation by different officials.
• Remove unnecessary limits on tax benefits: For
a number of reasons, almost no one in the country uses the current incentives provided to reduce
their personal income tax liability when they donate. There are also difficulties exempting VAT
from donations given via telecommunications
(e.g., mobile phone donation drives). The law
should allow natural persons who donate from
their salary-based income to benefit from tax incentives.
• Improve records, reports and control: The process of reporting on received donations/sponsorships burdens the recipients and
does not serve its purpose. Donation-related reporting should
be simplified to allow the Public Revenue Office to determine
the donation and sponsorship
amounts eligible for tax incentives. A clearer line needs to be
drawn between activities related
to controlling the use of tax benefits and those related to catching misuse of donations/sponsorships by recipients.
NEW MEMBER
Van Hool of Belgium manufactures approximately 1.400 buses and coaches, and as many as 4.000 commercial
vehicles annually of which 80% are exported worldwide. With a workforce of over 4.000, Van Hool is a major bus
manufacturer in Europe, offering a complete range of buses for public transport for international markets, ranging from a 9m midi bus to a 25m double articulated low floor bus. For over 65 years, Van Hool has a reputation
for designing and building high quality, state-of-art, customized products.
Emerging Macedonia Fall 2013 Issue 39
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