Who controls budgetary process in Croatia?

The Parliament does not adequately perform its tasks within the budgetary process. This is due to its inferior position to that of the Government, lack of infrastructure, i.e. offices, and funds, as well as budgetary and time constraints. In order to improve the Parliament's operation it is necessary to allocate more funds for the professional improvement of employees, to organise a continuous or supplementary education for MP's, to establish the budget of the Committee on Finance and State Budget (The Budget Committee), to improve the efficiency of that Budget Committee and to facilitate communication between the Ministry of Finance, Government, Parliament and, particularly, the Budget Committee. It is especially important that the Government or the Ministry of Finance should provide timely and reliable information to the Parliament and the Budget Committee on all issues relevant to the budget

Tax expenditures: a theoretical review

Tax expenditures are an instrument frequently used when a government wishes to achieve certain economic and social effects. But because of the increasing number and scope of tax expenditures, their proper use, quality of administration and record-keeping have become a major challenge for the tax authorities and the whole of the government. The article considers and explains very diverse forms of tax expenditure such as reliefs, tax deductions, tax allowances, tax exceptions and special rates of taxation and the ways in which they are defined and calculated. The key problems in the analysis are the absence of a single definition and of methodology for the calculations; these ultimately make it impossible to compare tax expenditures between or among countries.tax expenditures, reliefs, credits, exceptions

Tax expenditure in Croatia: personal income, corporate income, real estate transfers and value added tax

The objective of this research was to show systematically all the items that represent tax expenditures in Croatia, within the systems of personal and corporate income tax, real estate transfer tax and value added tax, and to ascertain the real level of tax expenditures in terms of each individual form of tax in the period from 2001 to 2004. At the same time, this research should serve as a source of information on tax expenditure necessary for an analysis of the Croatian tax system and an assessment of its efficiency.tax expenditure, Croatia

Local Self-Government in Central and Eastern Europe: a Strong and Independent Local-Level Management Tool or Just a Paper Tiger?

The onset of the independence process in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries during the 1990s was marked by tremendous optimism and a declared wish for stronger fiscal decentralisation and the transfer of powers, responsibilities and resources to the units of local and regional self-government that were supposed to be closest to citizens in resolving their daily problems. However, this has not happened in these countries, at least not according to the basic financial decentralisation indicators, and this is the main thesis of this work. Despite numerous adjustments made in the local self-government organisation in the observed countries, an optimum level of local and regional self-government organisation has still not been achieved. The units of local and regional self-government are still heavily dependent on, or rather restricted by, the strong central governments, which reduces their autonomy and their influence on the local social and economic development.local self-government, fiscal decentralisation, Central and Eastern Europe

Tax expenditures in Croatia

The tax system of the Republic of Croatia contains a large number of very diverse kinds of tax expenditures whose the declared aim is to achieve certain social and economic objectives. This paper considers all the items that constitute tax expenditures in Croatia, within the systems of the personal income tax, corporate income tax, and real estate transfer tax and value added tax. The objective of the article is to determine the real level of tax expenditures per form of tax in the 2001-2004 period. We hypothesised that the tax expenditures in the analysed forms of tax are both high and growing, which was ultimately borne out, for almost all the analysed items in the tax forms considered are growing.tax expenditures, personal income tax, corporate income tax, real estate transfer tax and value added tax.

Understanding ageing - the role of mitochondria in determination of caenorhabditis elegans life span

Mitochondria are organelles found in eukaryotic cells. They are involved in many vital cellular functions. Consequently, mitochondrial dysfunction leads to a variety of human disorders. Many studies of the last 50 years showed that mitochondria are involved in the regulation of physiological ageing. However, the underlying mechanisms are still unknown. We aimed to analyze the mitochondrial role in ageing in Caenorhabditis elegans model system. Its short life cycle, powerful genetic tools and known fates of all 959 post-mitotic somatic cells make this nematode an excellent model system for ageing studies. Besides numerous advantages, the small body size of the worm brings along certain technical limitations. We developed a toolkit to analyze mitochondrial morphology, metabolic profile and electron transport chain (ETC) activities on a single-tissue level. In addition, we adapted a method for analysis of mtDNA copy number for use on individual animals. Each mitochondrion has its own genome that is maintained by mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma (POLG). By analyzing polg-1 mutant worms that are deficient in the sole mitochondrial DNA polymerase, we showed that C. elegans mtDNA replication mainly takes place in the gonad, the only proliferative tissue in adult worms. Thus mtDNA depletion leads to marked dysfunction of this organ. Severe mtDNA depletion leads to embryonic arrest, whereas mild depletion does not affect development. We showed that mtDNA replication does not take place during embryogenesis; it starts during the L3 larval stage, correlating with germline proliferation. Taken together, mtDNA copies in the somatic tissues mainly stem from the oocyte and stay relatively unchanged during development and early adulthood. Remarkably, somatic tissues are not severely affected in polg-1 deficient animals despite the marked overall mtDNA depletion in contrast to other model systems, namely flies and mice. Furthermore, we showed that mtDNA copy number exhibits substantial plasticity upon environmental stress. Mitochondria are the major source of ATP, which they form by oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). Defective OXPHOS often results in severe phenotypes or premature death in several animal models. However, studies in C. elegans showed that dysfunction in the mitochondrial respiratory chain is not necessarily lethal. It can rather result in lifespan prolongation in the so-called “Mit mitochondrial) mutants”. We analyzed molecular mechanisms that underlie the longevity induced by mitochondrial dysfunction. It has been shown that different mechanisms can affect the longevity of Mit mutants. We found that succinate dehydrogenase activity of electron transport chain (ETC) complex II (CII) influences the lifespan of Mit mutants independently of the insulin-like/IGF-1 pathway. We showed that mitochondrial unfolding protein response (UPRmt) is up-regulated in both short- and long-lived Mit mutants. Furthermore, our results suggest that respiration rate is not necessarily linked to longevity. Analysis of several metabolic pathways in Mit mutants revealed that dysfunction of the mitochondrial respiratory chain leads to a common response characterized by up-regulation of the citric acid cycle, glycolysis, and some anaerobic pathways, accompanied by increase in neutral fat storage

The administrative costs of taxation and customs clearing in Croatia, 1999-2001

In this article we have endeavoured to show the amount of the administrative costs of taxation and customs clearing in the Republic of Croatia in the last few years, to point out certain problems that exist in the functioning of the departments that collect them and to give some recommendations about how to reduce these problems. Particular attention is devoted to the Tax and Customs Administrations and to the Financial Police (as it was until disbanded). These departments have the task of collecting tax and customs revenues in line with the law, providing citizens with services from their domains that are as good as possible and paying attention to the costs that are incurred while they are carrying out their jobs, both the administrative costs (borne by the tax and customs authorities) and the compliance costs (borne by the taxpayers). In this paper too we have shown that many of the problems that showed up during the first investigation still exist, that is, that nothing has been done for these problems to be eliminated

Map of Land Cover Agreement: Ensambling Existing Datasets for Large-Scale Training Data Provision

Land cover information plays a critical role in supporting sustainable development and informed decision-making. Recent advancements in satellite data accessibility, computing power, and satellite technologies have boosted large-extent high-resolution land cover mapping. However, retrieving a sufficient amount of reliable training data for the production of such land cover maps is typically a demanding task, especially using modern deep learning classification techniques that require larger training sample sizes compared to traditional machine learning methods. In view of the above, this study developed a new benchmark dataset called the Map of Land Cover Agreement (MOLCA). MOLCA was created by integrating multiple existing high-resolution land cover datasets through a consensus-based approach. Covering Sub-Saharan Africa, the Amazon, and Siberia, this dataset encompasses approximately 117 billion 10m pixels across three macro-regions. The MOLCA legend aligns with most of the global high-resolution datasets and consists of nine distinct land cover classes. Noteworthy advantages of MOLCA include a higher number of pixels as well as coverage for typically underrepresented regions in terms of training data availability. With an estimated overall accuracy of 96%, MOLCA holds great potential as a valuable resource for the production of future high-resolution land cover maps

Uhl\u27s anomaly- a rare cause of congestive heart failure

INTRODUCTION Uhl’s anomaly is characterized by absence of the right ventricular myocardial layer. Although it appears to be of congenital origin, etiology is still uncertain. Patients usually present with congestive heart failure. Diagnosis is generally suggested by echocardiography. Medication treatment is only palliative, but surgical methods offer etiological cure