Summary Of The Audit Report Regularity And Performance Audit

summary of the audit report regularity and performance audit of charging and using the environmental tax for pollution of environment due to

Summary of the Audit Report Regularity and Performance Audit of
Charging and Using the Environmental Tax for Pollution of Environment
due to Waste Disposal in the Period from 2002 to 2005
The Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia carried out a
regularity and a performance audit of charging and using the
environmental tax for pollution of environment due to waste disposal
in the period from 2002 to 2005 of the Ministry of the Environment and
Spatial Planning, the Municipality of Maribor and the Snaga, javno
podjetje, d. o. o., Maribor (hereinafter: the Snaga public utility).
The audit objectives were to express an opinion on the regularity of
the Municipality of Maribor and the Snaga public utility in charging
and using the environmental tax for pollution of environment due to
waste disposal in the period from 2002 to 2005; and to express an
opinion on the efficiency of the Ministry of the Environment and
Spatial Planning in regulating and imposing the environmental tax for
pollution of environment due to waste disposal in the period from 2002
to 2005.
As regards the regularity of charging and using the environmental tax
for pollution of environment due to waste disposal the Court of Audit
expressed an adverse opinion to the Municipality of Maribor and the
Snaga public utility. The opinion is based on the following
irregularities of the Municipality of Maribor:
*
the manner of refunding the environmental tax was not defined in
the contracts on the manner of transferring the environmental tax
to the budget for the period from 2002 to 2005; for the
differential amount between the collected environmental tax
respectively the environmental tax transferred to the state budget
and the levied environmental tax as defined in the decision of the
Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning in the amount of
SIT 499,226 thousand (EUR 2,083,233) in the period from 2002 to
2005 in line with paragraph 4 of Article 113 of the Environment
Protection Act;
*
until 31 December 2005 the persons liable for tax were not
refunded the difference between the collected and levied
environmental tax for the years 2002, 2003 and 2004 in the total
amount of SIT 422,604 thousand (EUR 1,763,495) in line with
Article 19 of the Decree on Environmental Tax, Article 113,
paragraph 4 of the Environment Protection Act and general rules on
reimbursement as defined in Article 190 of the Code of
Obligations;
*
because of the ineligible use of the environmental tax in the
total amount of SIT 37,491 thousand (EUR 156,447) for covering the
costs of environment tax collection, the Municipality of Maribor
operated contrary to Articles 21 to 24 of the Decree on the Waste
Disposal Tax;
and the following irregularities of the Snaga public utility:
*
it did not receive the approval for disposing waste at the Dogoše
Baled Waste Disposal as defined by Article 27 of the Rules on
Waste Management and Article 46 of the Rules on Waste Disposing;
*
in 2002 and 2003 it did not transfer the collected environmental
tax to the budget of the Municipality of Maribor, as it should in
line with the time limits defined in the contracts,
*
until 31 December 2005 the users of public utility services were
not refunded the collected environmental tax that exceeded the
levied tax for the years 2002, 2003 and 2004 in the estimated
amount of SIT 562,082 thousand (EUR 2,345,527), since it did not
demand the refunding of funds from the Municipality of Maribor and
other municipalities as prescribed by Article 113, paragraph 4 of
the Environment Protection Act and Article 19, paragraph 4 of the
Decree on Environmental Tax;
*
it did not on time (as defined by Article 14 of the Decree on the
Waste Disposal Tax) submit the environmental tax declaration when
it stopped disposing waste at the Podbrežje Landfill.
In addition the Court of Audit assessed the efficiency of regulating
and imposing the environmental tax for pollution of environment due to
waste disposal which is a responsibility of the Ministry of the
Environment and Spatial Planning. The Court of Audit estimated that
the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning in the period
from 2002 to 2005 was not efficient in regulating and imposing the
environmental tax for pollution of environment due to waste disposal,
since it did not provide for the legal framework in the field of
environmental taxation for waste disposal, therefore it caused
uncertainty in the operations of the entities liable to environmental
tax and municipalities that were granted the environmental tax by the
Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning. The Ministry of the
Environment and Spatial Planning:
*
failed to propose appropriate arrangements in the field of
taxation due to environmental pollution by waste disposal,
*
when imposing the environmental tax, it caused additional
uncertainty in operations of the Snaga public utility and
municipalities,
*
failed to appropriately monitor the application of the
environmental tax due to waste disposal.
The Court of Audit demanded a response report from the Ministry of the
Environment and Spatial Planning, the Municipality of Maribor and the
Snaga public utility indicating the corrective measures concerning the
disclosed irregularities and inefficiencies.
In the response report the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial
Planning had to present:
*
a list of the annual differences between the collected and levied
environmental tax due to waste disposal by service providers
separately for the years 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005;
*
instructions on manner of budget implementation (collected and
levied amount of the environmental tax due to waste disposal) for
the period from 2002 to 2006;
*
instructions on manner of charging and accounting of the
environmental tax due to waste disposal and that it submitted the
instructions to the taxable persons;
*
the adoption and setting up of the internal controls that had to
be in line with the provisions of the Regulation on the Formation
of Prices for Basic Public Utility Services and that it provided
for verification of appropriateness of charging the environmental
tax and that it informed the Ministry of the Economy on disclosed
irregularities;
*
the adopted proposals for amendments of the Decree on
Environmental Tax for Pollution of Environment Caused by Waste
Disposal that relate to the regulation of the procedure of the
first assessment of the tax and the evaluation of the monthly
prepayment of the environmental tax; furthermore it had to be
clearly shown that they were submitted to the Government of the
Republic of Slovenia in order to be adopted;
*
a proposal of amendments of the Regulation on the Formation of
Prices for Basic Public Utility Services that were delivered to
the Ministry of the Economy and the Ministry of the Finance in
order to be negotiated and afterwards adopted by the Government of
the Republic of Slovenia, namely the proposal had to clearly and
transparently define that an environmental tax was included in the
price of the utility services provided or that it was excluded
from them.
The Municipality of Maribor and the Snaga public utility had to
present in the response report that they made a contract which
included an agreement on the manner of the account statement
presentation and the manner of refunding the overpaid environmental
tax due to waste disposal from 2002 onwards to the users of the public
utilities services. In addition, the Snaga public utility had to
indicate that it stopped levying and collecting the environmental tax
due to waste disposal alongside of the waste management costs and that
the environmental tax due to waste disposal was accounted in the
bookkeeping as an operational cost.
Ljubljana, 20 August 2007
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