Tax police and tax crime in Serbia

In Serbia, the detection of tax crimes is the responsibility of the Tax Administration, and these tasks are performed by the Tax Police, which act as a body of pre-investigation procedure, in the sense of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Tax Police inspectors, as authorized officials of the Ministry of Finance, have powers to take certain measures and actions to collect information and evidence, which may be of importance for criminal proceedings for tax crimes. The paper made a critical analysis of the legal framework of the Tax Police status in detecting tax crimes, the result of which shows that the powers of Tax Police inspectors are neither adequately regulated, nor in line with the powers and duties that the police have in the pre-investigation procedure for other crimes, so certain proposals for legislative intervention were made. Also, the lack of a clearly defined relationship and division of roles between the Tax Police and the police in combating this form of financial crime is pointed out.