EU Twinning Project: Improving Revenue Collection and Tax and Customs policy includes participants from three institutions: Ministry of Finance, Public Revenue Office, and Customs Administration. The project started on 20th January 2020 and because of the Covid pandemic workshops so far have been entirely performed by online applications like Skype and Web-ex. This project has been a pilot project for workshops online. Often we have held up to 3 workshops, sometimes even 4 weekly. Nevertheless, this project is fully successful and has held 80 workshops so far.

The project has 4 components.

In Component 1 we have been producing Gaps and Needs analysis for a new financial low that will increase revenue collection in North Macedonia. We have also started drafting new legislation in English and the Macedonian language.

In Component 2 we are very proud that we produced Tax Expenditure Estimation Report which was very much needed in North Macedonia. Also, participants have been trained to analyze financial data and make finical predictions.

In Component 3 Customs officials have been trained in various fields for tax and customs procedures, movement of waste, cooperation and procedures with public prosecutors, economic investigation. Enchantment of the IT and operational capacities in defining business processes of customs procedures in direction of preparation of technical specification for Traditional own resources system (A and B accounts)  Drafts of business concepts were made for EORI 2 and NCTS phase 5.

In Component 4 various Assessment Reports were produced on existing methodological tools in areas of VAT, Tax Debt ad Tax collection management.

— Strengthening the knowledge on EU Customs Procedures through a Study visit to Zagreb – Collaboration between Macedonian and Croatian Customs Officers —

Partnership, collaboration and exchange of knowledge has successfully been carried out in the period from 23 to 27 May 2022 in the premises of the Croatian Customs Administration in Zagreb. A total of 15 representatives from the Customs Administration of the Republic of North Macedonia (CARNM) had the opportunity to exchange their experiences with the Croatian Customs experts on various topics related to: EU systems for tobacco traceability and security features in the field of tobacco products, HR national control measures on raw tobacco, legislative framework of harmonization of the structure for solution on alcohol and alcoholic beverages.

Alongside these topics the participants had the opportunity to and get more familiar with the structure and work of some of its sectors such as the Sector of Finance, the Sector for Customs System, the Excise Sector, the IT Sector and the Sector for Control. This study visit was a huge possibility for the Macedonian participants to see how these sectors function on site. This visit was a good opportunity to meet and discuss with the Croatian colleagues on other topics such as the business process for e-commerce, implementation of security standards for ICT systems, legal acts and procedures for customs and excise control (PCA), taxation of CO2 component motor vehicles according to WLTP methodology and more.

The Study visit was organized within the EU funded Twinning project “Improving Revenue Collection and Tax and Customs Policy” and provided good ground for new ideas for future cooperation.