Fiscal amnesty legislation is right around the corner! Finance minister gives a short deadline

Finance minister Eugen Teodorovici said on Wednesday that the Ministry is working on a proposal for a package of measures for “financial restructuring”, Agerpres reports.

“Amnesty… We’re calling it fiscal restructuring. We’re working on a measure package proposal at the Ministry, until the end of October, which will include taxpayer categories – with debts or without debts. Afterwards, it will be discussed within the coalition, the government and we will take such a measure, because it’s the right time for it to happen. These measures are part of the larger package of measures for the economic area, whether we’re talking about insolvency, about amnesty or – as we call it – financial restructuring, or other provisions that can support the business environment and have that mediation role, to stop seizing, blocking accounts, especially for city halls. Unfortunately, the state today still blocks the accounts of some city halls,” said Teodorovici.

Last month, the minister said that the idea of a fiscal amnesty has not been dropped, but that it won’t exactly be an amnesty, but a framework to allow benefits to be offered to those who have voluntarily complied.

On the other hand, at the end of July, the president of the National Council for SMEs (CNIPMMR), Florin Jianu, said that only two in ten entrepreneurs support fiscal amnesty, even though over 44 percent would personally gain from voluntarily declaring their non-taxed incomes, according to a survey conducted by CNIPMMR on the usefulness of fiscal amnesty in July.

Asked whether they support the measure, 76.2 percent of respondents said they did not. As for who should benefit from fiscal amnesty, respondents said that individuals and micro-enterprises should be the main beneficiaries.

In terms of the effects that fiscal amnesty could have, 46 percent of respondents said the measure is controversial and has multiple effects, while 30.2 percent said it would have negative effects, with only 23.8 percent seeing its possible effects as positive. Among the positive effects mentioned by respondents were the reduction or elimination of late penalties or the removal of sanctions for such cases.

As for the negative effects that the measure could cause, most respondents suggested that it could lead to people to no longer pay their budgetary debts, encourage even more tax fraud, have negative effects over the state budget and increase the risk of criminal behaviour.