Zagreb resident reported income of a few thousand kuna, but has 92 million euros in an Italian bank account

"Billions of kuna are stored in hidden accounts abroad," said Croatian Finance Minister Boris Lalovac at a regional conference in Sarajevo, HRT reports, according to the Patria News Agency.

The Finance Minister added that all Croatian citizens who have deposited money abroad will have to prove the origin of that money. He claims that investigative measures have already been initiated.

- For example, we have pensioners who reported very low incomes in Croatia, but have very high savings abroad, said Lalovac.

Lalovac also emphasized at the conference that the Ministry of Finance has established a special office to combat major tax fraud. It was this office, in cooperation with the State Attorney's Office (DORH), that recently received data on the savings of citizens of the Republic of Croatia abroad.

The largest single amount found in an account belonging to a Croatian citizen is as much as 92 million euros, RTL Direkt reveals.

This concerns an account opened in a bank in Italy, on which no tax has ever been paid because the saver is a Croatian resident, and Croatia neither had a tax on interest nor knew about this account. Therefore, according to data from the bank itself, an interest of as much as 14 million kuna was paid last year on the principal of this Croatian account.

RTL Direkt also learned that the saver in question, who is registered as a resident in Croatia, has reported monthly income of only a few thousand kuna to the Tax Administration and owns a 56-square-meter apartment in Zagreb.