Business environment recommends flat tax preservation, cut of tax evasion, harsher sanctions

The business environment recommends to the authorities several directions for fiscal measures, including maintaining the flat tax, a real reduction of tax evasion, increasing tax collection, combating evasion through harsher actions and re-establishing the tax system so as to stimulate work, a release by the main organizations in the business environment reads.

The flat tax rate should be maintained, being a simple and essential tax system for economic growth, "which has brought prosperity, generated jobs, encouraged the formation of a middle class in Romania and which, at the same time, represents one of the main competitive advantages of Romania".

The business environment also recommends: the real reduction of tax evasion, including the VAT collection deficit, as well as the reduction of state expenditures, a fundamental tool for achieving this goal being the digitization of the Tax Authority (ANAF); increasing tax collection and combating tax evasion, through harsher sanctions and controls in areas where problems are identified; reassessment of the framework in which micro-enterprises and authorised individuals (PFAs) are used in Romania.

"These are beneficial and welcome forms of organization as long as they have a purpose well-defined by law and are used in good faith, by a real entrepreneurial manner, not to mask forms of employment," the quoted source says.

Other recommendations are aimed: to re-establish the tax system so as to stimulate work, to bring out the undeclared and gray work, to reduce the exodus of employees and to bring back the Romanians from abroad (a desideratum that can be achieved by capping the social contributions of health and pensions to a reasonable number of average salaries in the economy), to identifying the key sectors that the Government wants to stimulate, taking into account Romania's interest and the medium and long-term perspective (stimulating the export of goods and services with high added value can help reduce the trade deficit).

At the same time, the economic environment considers it vital that any changes to public policies be made in consultation with all interested parties in a transparent manner. The business community also expresses its openness and readiness for dialogue with the authorities in order to lay together the foundations of a sustainable, clear, digital and predictable tax system.

"We want a healthy economy that respects European principles and good practices in terms of taxation, a desideratum that we can only achieve through a constant dialogue between the business environment and the authorities," the businesspersons' community points out.

The recommendations come from the Foreign Investors Council (FIC), the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham), the French Chamber of Commerce in Romania (CCIFER), the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK), the Employers' Confederation CONCORDIA, the Business Persons' Association of
Romania (AOAR), the Romanian Business Leaders (RBL), the Dutch Romanian Chamber of Commerce (NRCC), British-Romanian Chamber of Commerce (BRCC), the Bilateral Greek-Romanian Chamber of Commerce (HRCC), Chamber of Commerce for Belgium, Luxembourg, Romania and Moldova (BEROCC).AGERPRES