31 martie, 2019

The Ministry of Public Finance published Tuesday evening, a day and a half before the approval in the Government, the draft OUG that amends the „Greed Ordinance” issued in December 2018 without a public consultation and an impact assessment.

OUG 114 was strongly challenged by the business community and criticized by officials of the European Commission.

The new form of the ordinance seems to take into account the observations and some of the proposals advanced by the business community.

Main changes:

As regards the taxation of the banking system, the new draft changes the method of calculating the tax on bank assets; it will no longer be related to ROBOR level but will be a fixed tax of 0.4% for banks with a market share higher than 1 % and 0.2% for banks with a market share of less than 1%.

Banks that has accounting losses before calculating the tax on assets at the end of the semester or the year for which the tax is due are not subject to tax on assets.

The Government introduces a new way of calculating the reference for RON-denominated loans – loans in national currency will no longer refer to ROBOR, but a benchmark index calculated on the basis of actual transactions that will be calculated by the BNR quarterly.

Banks could benefit from a tax cut by half if they increase the crediting over a certain target and/or by another half, if they reduce the interest margin between loans and deposits in RON below a certain level to be set by the Government annually, by government decision.

The pressure on the private pension system is maintained and the only concession is the postponement until May 31, 2019 of the term by which the managers of private pension funds from Pillar II have to increase their share capital.

The Government gives up the 2% tax on coal energy producers, despite the warnings from the Competition Council that the measure could be seen in Brussels as a state aid.