Christmas might be behind us for another year (well, almost another year), but the heartfelt news of Croatian companies in all fields and sectors having paid out huge bonuses to their employees up and down the country is enough to bring the generous spirit of the season right back again.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 12th of January, 2019, while they couldn't pay themselves a tax free cash sum, Croatian companies and employers made sure to reward their loyal employees a total of 2.4 billion kuna in Christmas bonuses and similar rewards last month, and a further one billion kuna was paid out for their good work performance results, according to the findings of the Croatian tax administration.
When summed up as a whole, the amount of bonuses and other similar cash sums paid out to hard-working employees by Croatian companies reaches a massive figure of 3.4 billion kuna, as has been reported by Večernji list.
The results show that on average, each employee received about 2,500 kuna in untaxed benefits, but as is usually the case with any other average, this does not show the real state of affairs. The tax administration points out that back in December 2018, bonuses amounting to a massive one billion kuna were paid out by as many as 37 thousand Croatian companies for 422 thousand employees scattered across the country.
Work performance bonuses were paid only by the private sector and not by the public sector. Finance Minister Zdravko Marić freed up the payment of tax on the payment of bonuses of up to 5,000 kuna per employee, a measure which was readily taken advantage of by every fourth active private Croatian company.
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