Assistant Justice Minister Jelena Deretić is one of the winners of the 2019 Award for the Property Rights Registration Reform and the Suspension of Tax Returns, presented by NALED as part of the 12th Annual Grey Book 2020 Conference on Economic Reforms. She led the team which received this award. The team members included Ms Ana Đilas, an adviser in the Department of E-Justice of the Ministry of Justice, Ms Danka Garić from the Republic Geodetic Authority, Ms Ljiljana Petrović from the Ministry of Finance and Ms Violeta Nićiforović from the City of Belgrade.
Ms Deretić thanked NALED for the award pointing out that the recent amendments to the Property Taxes Act made notary public offices focal points for all types of legal transactions related to real estate transactions and inheritance. She said that citizens were now relieved of any kind of additional involvement in obtaining the basic documentation needed to draft a notarial document or inheritance decision. She explained how two years prior, they were wasting time by going personally to the real estate cadastre and tax administration units to submit a registration request and tax returns. ‘Today, the entire procedure is fully automated, the registration itself is electronic, and the taxing procedure for any legal transaction related to real estate transactions and inheritance entails automatic apportionment of associated tax liabilities,’ she declared.
Ms Deretić also stated that such a system had saved around 30 million dinars of the state budget in 2019, and that an estimated 60 million dinars would be saved in 2020, based on automatic tax apportionment. ‘Advantages for the citizens and the economy are immeasurable since they complete all the necessary steps in notary public offices,’ she concluded.