Serbian music stars face sudden tax scrutiny
By Aleksandar Vasovic BELGRADE (Reuters) - Tax inspectors in Serbia have turned their attention to a parade of local pop and folk music stars summoned to explain their earnings and extravagant lifestyles in the wake of a government pledge to rein in a vast gray economy. For the past week, a succession of singers have been pictured in tabloids turning up at the offices of Serbia's tax authority, feeding speculation about tax evasion in the Serbia's gaudy folk and pop scene. Attention has focused on 26-year-old Sandra Prodanovic, known as Sandra Afrika, who has been pictured in the media posing in front of a white BMW and lounging on a yacht. On Thursday, the Serbian daily Blic quoted unnamed sources as saying Prodanovic, who had a hit in 2012 with "Someone will make me a son tonight", had told tax inspectors she performs for free and that her expensive cars were presents from her boyfriend and grandmother. She declined to speak to Reuters when reached by phone. Tax evasion is widespread in Serbia, where the gray economy is estimated to account for 30 percent of national output. Trying to rein in its deficit and debt and keen to satisfy rule-of-law conditions for the European Union membership it seeks, Belgrade launched its latest tax collection campaign last year. While the average Serbian earns around 380 euros ($439) per month, pop stars in the former Yugoslav republic can make thousands of euros per night singing at parties and events. In addition, they often travel to perform for the large ex-Yugoslavia diaspora in Western Europe, Canada and the United States. They are frequently paid in cash. Serbia’s pop-folk scene, often termed “turbo-folk”, flourished in the 1990s as part of the brash and brutal gangster culture that accompanied the wars of Yugoslavia’s demise. Its biggest stars rubbed shoulders with the political elite under then-President Slobodan Milosevic and enjoyed their protection. Marko Marinkovic, the head of Serbia's Tax Administration, told the Kurir tabloid last week that his office was "rigorously checking stage artists in Serbia". A music manager, who asked not to be named, told Reuters: "The problem is that most of them mainly make money outside Serbia, in clubs in Germany and France for example, and for cash only. This cash culture has survived for centuries." Neda Ukraden, a pop singer whose career stretches back to 1960s socialist Yugoslavia, was also among those summoned to the tax office. She told Reuters: "Back then, (paying taxes) was testimony to someone's quality and in the 45 years of my career I have paid taxes for every dinar at home and abroad and I'm paying for everything I earn now." (Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
