Social Democrat leader Dragnea announces upcoming tax evasion legislation shake-up to remove current flaws

Chamber of Deputies Speaker Liviu Dragnea announced on Wednesday at the launch event of the 2018 State Aid Scheme instituted under Government Resolution No. 807 that the tax evasion legislation will be changed within short on grounds that it is "flawed and gives rise to the possibility that any control agency accuses any business person of tax evasion".

Dragnea argued that a healthy economic development requires Romania's business milieu to be increasingly stronger and stable, highly confident in the future and willing to invest more in Romania.

"Actions to combat smuggling and tax evasion will continue, but at this point I'd like to note this - I think Romanian tax evasion legislation is bad and creates the possibility for any control agency to accuse any business person of evading taxes. It's so complicated, so dangerously conceived and worded that any business person could be accused of dodging taxes right as we speak. (...) In a relatively short time we'll come up with serious proposals to change this legislation for business people in Romania to be sure of one simple thing: they have no trouble at all if their handling is honest, and if they are dishonest they might have trouble. But let them no longer linger in the permanent uncertainty that someone might show up accusing them of tax evasion while they are convinced they did nothing of the kind," said the Social Democrat leader.

He said that many Romanian business people are looking to sell their local business because they want to move elsewhere "out of fear".

"We must state this openly: this is not the Romania we had in mind, this is not the business milieu we were after. We have a completely different approach and we want a truly serious, real and honest partnership between public authorities and the business milieu," Dragnea said.

At the end of the event, the Lower House Speaker said the change of the tax evasion legislation has been in talks inside the ruling coalition for some time now.

"We have been discussing the subject for some time now, we discussed it inside the coalition and in the party, at the government too, we talked it over with business people at various meetings and even with the Superior Council of the Magistrates (CSM), because the relevant legislation must be sorted out and clarified, because the way it is today it's unclear and thus gives room for interpretation - as customary in Romania - by control agencies against the person verified," said the PSD leader, mentioning that talks were aimed at attaining the "main goal" of having a clear legislation in place.

"Let us not forget the desire and the principle we are highly particular about, the principle of prevention; let us not necessarily seek to shut down the respective businesses or - as this has been frequently the case in Romania - send business people behind bars. And let's also clearly delineate the tax evasion zone from the law observance area, for the companies to know, because the way they are now things are not clear and the decision is at the discretion of the tax inspector who is not quite sure himself, and then it's for the prosecution to sort out the matter. (...) And instead of making profit, creating jobs and economic growth in Romania, the business people's concern is with these checks performed on ground of unclear legislation. We are also highly interested that in such cases the method to recover the money is also established, yet not by finishing off the source of revenues and economic growth for Romania," Dragnea detailed.

He emphasized that under the current confused legislation, "any company can be accused of money laundering".

Referring to the version proposed by CSM, Dragnea said he considers it to be an important step forward: "What I find most important is that increasingly more institutions understand to move out of the shadowy, dark approach that has been specific to Romania in the past ten years and head towards a positive, correct and healthy approach, aimed at the country's growth and development." AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)