PM Ciolacu: Limiting cash payments to 5,000 RON, tool to combat tax evasion
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said Tuesday evening that the measure limiting cash payments to 5,000 RON will not affect citizens, but is a tool to combat tax evasion.
"How do you want me to fight evasion? (...) It's a restriction at the moment. If you have the biggest evasion in Europe, you watch TV and you want a prime minister who comes like an old woman to complain to you? Oh, dear, what am I going to do? (...) If we have the biggest tax evasion, if they steal, they receive bribes, how, tell me? (...) The one you catch, you take him and put him in jail. The one you didn't catch, tell me what he does with the money, if he's limited, how does he get his Ferrari, in a carryall? How do you spend the money, sir, from the bribe, if you're limited to 5,000 RON? On small things," said Marcel Ciolacu at private broadcaster Romania TV.
He was also asked about the possibility that some Romanians might be tempted to spend their money in a neighbouring country, giving the example of Bulgaria, where there are not the same restrictions on cash payments.
"At the moment, 70 percent, if you don't have the source of the money, the state takes it. Until now there was no such thing. Until now, if they caught you with an amount over 10,000 at customs, they took 10% of it, the rest they gave you the money back. Now, I catch you with more, I take 10 percent and I take 70 percent more if you don't justify it, right? This is combating tax evasion," explained Ciolacu.
He pointed out that there will be no problems with cash payments for purchases made at the market, accusing a false propaganda in this regard.
AGERPRES