The younger son of the Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković, Jure Janković, has been removed from the list of the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia (FURS) tax debtors due to the statute of limitations, thus exonerating him from a debt of more than half a million euros owed to the Financial Administration. This is just one more in a series of debts totalling more than 42 million euros that were simply “written off” for the Janković family.
Once again, the Slovenian public is witnessing the issue of (non-)equality before the law between ordinary people and the Ljubljana “elite”. A recent decision by the Financial Administration (FURS) has written off more than half a million euros of debt owed to Jure Janković, the younger son of Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković. The reason, according to the newspaper Finance, is the statute of limitations, but to be honest – this favourable solution for the Jankovič family is not an isolated case.
According to the information available in the court registry of the Land Register, the Financial Administration has removed the lien it had on Janković’s 50-percent ownership stake in the holding company Electa from the property of Jure Janković. With the lien, the Administration had secured a 541-thousand-euro claim against Janković. But now, the District Court issued an order to stop the seizure and to annul the lien. No reasons for this have been given, according to the newspaper Finance. Jankovič junior has also disappeared from the Financial Administration’s list of tax debtors, and a mortgage of 461,249 euros registered by the Administration on his 1,422 square metre plot of land next to the family house in Vinterca has also been deleted.
The reason is said to be the “statute of limitations”
According to Finance, the withdrawal of the collateral is due to the statute of limitations on the debt, some of which has been repaid. The Financial Administration took Janković under scrutiny more than ten years ago when it assessed 461 thousand euros (excluding interest) in additional tax liabilities during an inspection between 2006 and 2010, the newspaper Dnevnik reported in 2014. The inspection showed that Janković’s private spending exceeded his officially declared income by 1.3 million euros.
The Financial Administration could not reveal more due to data protection concerns, but they are generally obliged to release the collateral without delay if the tax liability lapses or can no longer arise. The same happens in the event of payment of a secured debt, revocation of an enforcement order or a certificate of enforceability.
Almost 50 million euros have already been written off in the past
This is not the first time that Janković’s debts have been written off. In recent years, the court has written off nearly 29 million euros in debt owed by three companies owned by the Janković family – Electa Engineering, Electa Investments and Electa Holding. The legislation that made these write-offs possible was adopted during the government of Alenka Bratušek, which was actually led by Zoran Janković, then-President of the Positive Slovenia party (Pozitivna Slovenija). The simplified compulsory settlement introduced by this legislation allowed the Janković family companies to get rid of millions of euros in debts, leaving creditors unpaid.
In September 2020, news broke that the Janković family would not have to pay the 8 million euros in value-added tax and interest following a 2012 decision by the Financial Administration. After eight years, a court ruled that the decision should be reconsidered, and the Financial Administration dropped the case. In addition, the former SKB Bank, when it was still state-owned, wrote off 8 million Deutsche Mark of debt to the Janković family in the 1990s, which is about 4 million euros.
Despite numerous accusations and suspicions of wrongdoing, the Janković family continues to successfully exploit the legislative loopholes and procedures that allow their debts to be written off, and more than obviously enjoys a special status and immunity due to their political connections.
A. H.
