Herzegovina, Nov 5, SPA -- Bosnian Prime Minister Adnan Terzic, angered by the passage of a tax law, handed in a letter of resignation to the country's three-member presidency, his office said Friday. Terzic, who left for Saudi Arabia on Friday morning, was upset with a draft law on differentiated value-added tax that was passed by the Bosnian parliament's house of representatives, said an official from his office, speaking on condition of anonymity. He opposed the differentiated VAT rates of 0 and 17 percent and proposed a single rate, the official told The Associated Press. The draft law was passed on Thursday evening by a vote of 17-10, with eight abstentions. Terzic offered his resignation shortly afterward. The prime minister and his council of ministers had proposed that a single VAT rate be introduced. But the representatives opted for the proposal of the Commission for Finances and Budget with a zero rate for bread, oil, milk and books, and 17 percent for other products, the official said. Terzic and his ruling Muslim Party for Democratic Action argued that a single VAT rate would benefit agricultural production, pension funds and employment. The Bosnian Presidency is to discuss Terzic's resignation at an extraordinary session scheduled for Friday morning. "I do not want to speculate what they (the presidency) will decide. It will be their decision," Terzic was quoted as saying in a Friday's edition of a Sarajevo daily newspaper. "I am not prepared to continue to work with such a position of the parliamentarian majority," Terzic told the daily, Dnevni Avaz.
