AmCham Romania and the Foreign Investors Council are pleading for changes in the fiscal legislation

Newsroom 13/09/2011 | 16:11

Representatives of the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham) and the Foreign Investors Council (FIC) have announced today, in a press conference, the results of a proposal package for changes in the fiscal code, fiscal code procedures and customs procedures and regulation.

The joint effort of FIC and AmCham, which elaborated over 220 propositions, with the aid of 100 experts and practitioners (consultants, lawyers, accountants, economists and technical experts), resulted in Government Ordinances 29/2011 and 30/2011. However, only a small fraction of the propositions forwarded to the Romanian Finance Ministry were actually included in the fiscal legislation.

Ionut Simion, vice-president of AmCham Romania, mentioned that the propositions were submitted to Dan Lazar, state secretary in the Finance Ministry and Gheorghe Ialomitianu, minister of Public Finance. Simion also said that proper legislation has to be put into place, allowing the Finance Ministry and ANAF (fiscal administration unit) to improve their collaboration.

The government has to seek the modernization of the administrative collection capacity. Romania’s tax collection level is currently below Bulgaria. The percentage of revenue collected to the state budget is 32/33 percent of GDP, while the EU average is 42/44 percent. An increase of 10 percent in tax collection would see Romania gain an additional USD 12 million to the budget. Bulgaria has already implemented an integrated system which saw tax collection increase by 6 percent.

AmCham and FIC are still pleading for the rewriting of the Fiscal Code, a process that should have started in the autumn of 2011. The modernization of the fiscal legislation should improve Romania’s competitiveness at a regional level, resulting in GDP increases and further gains in revenue to the state budget.