Romania is expected to collect over 120 billion RON in VAT to the state budget, the Minister of Finance, Marcel Bolos, said on Friday at the briefing at the end of the Government meeting.
"We had consultations with the Chamber of Accounting Experts and Chartered Accountants, as well as with representatives of the Romanian Business Leaders business environment, also with representatives of Concordia, with representatives of the National Council of Small and Medium Enterprises, with representatives of AmCham and the Foreign Investors Fund. It was a consultation that resulted in observations that we transposed into the draft Emergency Ordinance that the Government approved today (Friday ed.n) As is known, VAT is the most important tax that Romania has and collects to the state budget. This year, over 120 billion RON are expected to be collected in the state budget. It is our main tax from which all other categories of public services are financed, from schools, hospitals, health units and also social assistance rights, including pensions," said Bolos.
The Minister of Finance mentioned, at the same time, that the VAT tax is not a cost for small and medium enterprises, for companies in Romania, but is a neutral tax and "as such, it does not affect the operating costs of the companies".
"Digitalization must bring more money to the state budget and effectively combat tax evasion, and for what it means the activities of the companies must support the activities of the companies, especially in this digitalization process. (...) Why this mechanism , why do we need VAT? Because we have an obligation to reduce the VAT gap by five percentage points, according to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, starting in 2025. We must also align ourselves with the objectives and standards of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development editor's note), which stipulate that tax authorities work with pre-filled tax returns and pre-filled account statements in the relationship with taxpayers. This is the future of tax administrations, where the information on taxes and duties is contained in these pre-completed statements of accounts, which we have been working on under the VAT mechanism," the official emphasized.
According to the data presented by the official, several European countries have implemented this mechanism, which "also brought them a corresponding reduction in the VAT gap".
He added that, at the moment, Romania is in first place in the ranking of countries that collect small amounts of VAT, with a gap of 35.7%.
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