IRMS Five Months Later: The System Formally Works, but the State Still Stands Still

At the beginning of the year, the Tax Administration of Montenegro presented the IRMS system as a key step toward a modern and efficient administration. Citizens and businesses were promised faster procedures, shorter waiting times, and simpler communication with institutions.

Today is May 11.

And after almost five months, the core issues we previously wrote about still remain.

Officially, the system is operational. Institutions continue to state that IRMS is functioning. In practice, however, everyday reality looks completely different.

The system still crashes. Cases disappear or remain “under processing” for days. It often happens that a client sees an application marked as active in the portal, while the tax officer has already returned the same application for amendment, but the system fails to display that information. In some cases, even employees of the Tax Administration themselves are unable to process cases because the system blocks access or prevents them from working.

In other words: the issue is no longer whether IRMS exists. The issue is that it has not been aligned with real administrative processes.

And that is where we come to the core of the problem.

Digitalization is not merely the creation of software. Digitalization requires a functional system that reflects the actual work of institutions and the needs of its users. If an officer cannot process a case, if a client cannot see the accurate status of a procedure, and if basic corporate procedures still require several weeks to complete, then the process has not been digitalized. It has simply been moved onto a screen.

Particularly concerning is the fact that even after five months, there is still no accountability. There is no clear explanation as to why the system continues to operate unstably. There is no answer as to who assessed that the system was ready for implementation. There is no answer as to who bears responsibility for delays that have lasted for months.

Attempts to communicate with the company that developed the software have remained unanswered, while institutions continue to present to the public a formal image of a functional system.

But businesses do not survive on official statements.
Businesses function through practice.

And practice today shows that people are still waiting. Procedures still take an unreasonable amount of time. Foreign clients and investors still struggle to understand how a simple matter can require weeks to process in a system that was introduced precisely to accelerate procedures.

And perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the entire situation is the attempt to present this state of affairs as normal, while everyone simply chooses to ignore the problem.

Because it is not normal for a system to remain unstable after five months.

It is not normal that even public officers cannot work without interruptions.

And it is not normal that nobody bears responsibility for it.

Digitalization is not successful the moment software is launched.

Digitalization becomes successful only when the system genuinely works.

And if, after five months, it still does not work, then the issue is clearly no longer technical in nature, but rather a matter of serious institutional failure.

Law Firm „Adžić & Knežević“