[elmo2you]

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to get at.

It appears you are explaining how the Serbian government wants to tax freelancers as if they would have been regular employees. Which other country does that? Where do self-employed people (freelancers) get taxed as if they are employees?

This assumption appears to be underpinning your whole comparison/explanation. Where did you get this assumption of "freelancer should be treated as employee" (as far as taxing goes) come from?

If it wasn't clear from my original sentence, I meant that this tax rate for freelancers is on par with what employees in OTHER countries often pay (if not higher). But I honestly don't know a single country that taxes freelancers as if they are regular employees.

Could you give me examples of other countries that do this, and what the rational behind such an unusual approach might be?

[vladvasiliu]

> Where do self-employed people (freelancers) get taxed as if they are employees?

In France, for example.

There's no actual concept of "Freelance" here [0]. Legally you're either an employee or you have some form of "company". An "independent" is basically someone running a company of one. But it's legally still a company.

If it's an "individual enterprise," you pay income tax and social security just like an employee. That's basically your revenue minus an allowance (40% I think but I'm not sure).

If you're a regular company, you'll either pay yourself a salary, in which case you pay almost all the taxes as a salaried person does (except for unemployment, which you don't get if your business falls through) or you pay yourself through dividends, in which case you pay a corporate tax (on the company's profits) + income tax (on your dividends). Even though there's a social security part levied on the dividends, you don't actually get anything in return. You're basically considered as someone who doesn't contribute to social security (no retirement and only basic health care — basically emergency). However, for any program that has an upper limit on income, your dividends are taken into account. So no social housing for you.

---

[0] There's no such thing as "freelance" in France. There are some jobs that are more or less close, but they're related to show-business. For the purpose of the IT sector, there's no such thing as "freelance".

[necovek]

Serbia has long had laws how any income not tied to employment is taxed.

It was always an obligation for the recipient of the income, if the payer is not a company in Serbia, to self report those taxes.

The rates were similar to how employees are taxed.

Does not matter how other countries do it, Serbia always had clear laws governing how taxes should be paid. I know that because I paid those myself in 2011 before registering as a self-employed entity (agency) and later a ltd (doo) company in order to reduce my tax burden.

FWIW, all countries tax all income for their residents, at similar or higher rates. Serbia is not too bad, and the proposed taxation rate for back taxes is actually quite low.

"Freelancers" are not some magical fairies, they are simply people earning money without a registered company being involved. Again, if a freelancer had a Serbian company as a client, that Serbian company would have the obligation to pay the taxes on their behalf. Otherwise, it is their duty to self-report any income using a PP OPO for since at least 2001.

One can also be regularly employed and have some side gigs which they would also have to self report to the Tax Office. The only benefit then is that social insurance taxes are added up and one needs not pay a total social insurance taxes larger than what it'd be for 5 times an average Serbian salary.

Any Serbian accountant would have shared as much.

For freelancers who have that as their main source of income, Serbia has had (and still does) extremely low tax rate with self employment entities (agency) unless you are actually in what amounts to an employee relationship. When I looked, I could not find any country in the world that had <10% taxes on gross income up to 4500 eur a month that included social insurance (health, pension and unemployment insurance).