The mayor of District 3 in Bucharest, Robert Negoita, is prosecuted in a tax evasion case involving the sale of villas and apartments starting 2006, when he was a businessman.
Prosecutors at the National Anticorruption Direction are accusing Negoita of VAT fraud worth RON 77 million (roughly EUR 17 million).
The DNA said that Negoita was engaged 1,250 real estate transactions for villas, apartments and parking spaces located in three residential parks in Bucharest and the neighboring cities of Voluntari and Popesti Leordeni.
He got RON 364 million (EUR 81.4 million) from selling the buildings on his own, without reporting the revenues to tax authority ANAF, between 2006 and 2009.
“To avoid the payment of taxes, Negoita used a creative mechanism through which the expenses for building the projects, in his own name, appeared in the accounting and reported by the companies he administered, but the revenues were not mentioned. As a result, for the three residential complexes, Negoita did not include the economic activity he had as taxable person enrolled in the VAT payment system,” said the DNA in a press release.
This means that although Negoita developed the projects, they were sold by a firm belonging to him.
Negoita is running for a new mandate as mayor of District 3. He is a member of the left-wing PSD party.
Ovidiu Posirca