The Feral Tribune closes due to ‘Draconian taxes’
Today the political and satirical Croatian weekly, Feral Tribune, is being forced to close, due to an overwhelming tax debt. The finance ministry froze the Tribune’s bank accounts because of 68,000 € of unpaid value-added tax (VAT).
Editor-in-chief, Viktor Ivancic, indicates that the financial woes of the paper are caused by a “draconian VAT on newspapers” and a lack of advertising revenue from local companies angered by the investigative reports about them.
“The most important reason is the marketing policy of big Croatian companies who feed newspapers with money and ads, which is ridden with corruption,” explains Ivancic.
The Feral Tribune was one of the strongest critics of the late autocratic president Franjo Tudjman’s regime, and had revealed numerous corruption scandals involving local politicians and businessmen.
Dragutin Lucic, head of Croatia’s journalists’ association, said of the closure: “In one period, Feral was a leader and symbol of media freedom, but everything comes to an end. I'm sorry that this is happening.”
A suggestion has been made by the Croatian government to reduce the level of VAT on news publications from the current level of 22% to 10%.
Source: AFP
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sean
www.communitygrouptherapy.com