07:30. Shoot day. I need sandwiches for the crew.
I pick a bakery for one reason: it's completely empty.
You'd think that would help. It does not.
I love my adopted country of Slovenia 🇸🇮. But nowhere is perfect. Some of the old ways are charming. Some of them need to die.
This country loves its bureaucracy. Or, to be more accurate, bureaucracy loves its bureaucracy. The people… do not.
Allow me to illustrate. By the end you'll understand why I pay €157.50 a month to get back €1.28 the government already knows is mine.
First, a little background.
Like any country, we have sales tax. Here it's called VAT (value added tax), or "DDV" in Slovenian; up to 22%. My company has "VAT payer status", which sounds like a punishment but actually means I don’t pay VAT — or more precisely, that I get the VAT back on business purchases. Astute readers can already see where this is going.
If something on the shelf costs €100, €18.03 of that is VAT. I get that €18.03 back. It adds up, so it's worth doing.
The process, however, is… tedious. Or, to put it less mildly, f'in insane.
It's a two-part process. Part one: buying the thing and paying the VAT. Part two: getting the VAT back. Both parts are ridiculous in their own special way.
For part one, I need a special receipt: a "račun original." (The grammatically correct Slovenian is "originalni račun". Nobody says that. Not even the bureaucrats.)
It's a receipt with my company name, address, and VAT ID on it. Sometimes it's just a longer slip (American readers; think CVS receipt). Sometimes it's a full A4, laser-printed dead tree; very official. Sometimes it even gets a stamp. Slovenians love their seals. (Not the animal. Not the singer. The rubber stamp kind. Although they probably like the other ones just fine too.)
Back in the day, a račun original was handwritten. Twice. One copy for the shop, which sent it to the tax authority, and one for the buyer, who also sent it to the tax authority. Then some tax authority bureaucrat matched the two up by hand and refunded the VAT.
Now it's all done by computer, of course. Remember that. It matters later.
My accountants assure me that nobody in the grocery line minds when the cashier takes five extra minutes to put my VAT ID on a €5 roll of paper towels. "Everyone knows it's normal."
I disagree. I don't want to hold up the line. I don't want the raised eyebrows of the woman behind me holding a single leek.
So I do everything I can to be quick. I even made a laminated card with my VAT ID and company details so nobody has to decode my imperfect Slovenian.
Back to the bakery.
Four pre-made sandwiches. "Račun original, prosim." Laminated card handed over. She bags the food and starts ringing it up.
Under 60 seconds. Beautiful.
Then she stops.
She doesn't know how to do the VAT ID.
She calls over a coworker.
They discuss.
Worker
#2 takes control.
Customers
#2 and
#3 walk in.
Worker
#1 abandons the VAT adventure to help them.
Worker
#2 gets on the phone.
Switches to register
#2.
Switches back to register
#1.
Customer
#4 walks in.
Customer
#1 is starting to sweat.
Worker
#1 tries to ring up the customers
#2 and
#3 on register
#2. She can't.
My €14.80 is showing on both registers, locking out other sales.
I am now officially the guy holding up the line.
The system crashes.
They reboot it.
Somehow, miraculously, the sale finally goes through.
I tap my phone.
SMS from my bank.
Then another one.
Worker
#2 curses.
I've been double-billed.
No worries, she'll fix it. Just please get me the hell out of here.
Ten minutes later, I walk out with four sandwiches and one račun original.
€14.80. Plus ten minutes. Plus one double charge.
Part one is now complete.
Part two: I scan the receipt for my accountants.
At the end of the month, they take every receipt and match it against my bank statements. Daily statements, by the way. Not monthly. Every day my bank balance changes, my bank creates a new statement.
That's up to 31 statements a month. February is my favorite month.
We don't ask why. This is the way.
If a receipt is missing, I get a stiffly worded email from the accountants. If I can't find it, the purchase becomes personal income. That means a €100 purchase that should cost the business €81.97 ends up costing the business something like €135, or whatever the grossed-up amount is for me to pocket €100.
So we do not lose receipts.
The accountants file the monthly VAT report. About a month later, the refund lands in my account.
For this pleasure, I pay them €157.50 a month. Just for the VAT report. Could I do it myself? Probably. Do I want to risk getting Slovenian bureaucracy wrong? Absolutely not.
In some months I get back less than €157.50. That hurts. I can't skip those months. It's all in or all out.
Let me recap, because that was a lot:
1. I buy something, pay the VAT-money, and get a račun original.
2. The store sends that VAT-money to the tax authority, tagged with my VAT ID.
3. My accountants match my receipt to my bank statement and file a report claiming that VAT-money back.
4. The tax authority compares my report with the store's report.
5. They match, and I eventually get the VAT-money back.
Look at step 4.
They're comparing a digital record from the store with a digital record from my accountants. They already know I paid that VAT. The store told them, with my VAT ID attached.
So why do I have to tell them too?
Is it just so they get to keep the money if I forget or lose a receipt?
Or let's go further: why does the store charge me VAT at all? Why does my money go from my bank to the store to the tax authority and back to me?
I show a valid VAT ID. It checks out.
JUST DON'T CHARGE ME THE VAT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
There. I just saved the country tens of thousands of hours per month of matching receipts and moving money around.
But of course, simplifying it would eliminate jobs. And processes. And bureaucracy. And the €157.50 I pay my accountants every month.
Speaking of which.
I pay VAT on that €157.50.
Then I get that VAT back through the VAT report.
Which costs me €157.50.
Figure that one out.
