Business representatives in Romania consider that the fiscal measures from the new government program do nothing but change the perception of the European community towards Romania, from a country with a good image, which is based on a significant economic growth, to a country in crisis.
„The expected measures and the announced and then denied measures show despair. Despair regarding the state budget revenue collection and despair about the budget deficit (…) Any measure introduced overnight makes the economy more fragile and frightens investors,” were some of the arguments offered by Florin Pogonaru (foto), President of AOAR.
The essence of the problem has been described by Daniel Anghel (foto), CIS, Tax Specialist:
„We have a lot of questions because the change of the tax paradigm, fiscal revolutions at every six months do no good … The Ministry of Finance announced a tax collection deficit of over 2 billion. In the new government program, we saw no measure for reducing the evasion. If they would do that, we would have no more problems.”
Florin Pogonaru also approached the issue of collecting the budget revenues and said:
„If there are companies in Romania that constantly declare losses, even for five years in a row, that is no concern of the business environment, it is the tax authority’s job!”
The Coalition for Romania’s Development (CDR) organized a joint press conference on Friday with the Businessmen’s Association of Romania (AOAR), the Romanian Business Leaders (RBL), the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham), the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Romania (CCIFER), the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) and the Foreign Investors Council (FIC).
Business representatives have reviewed the issues they are facing from the perspective of new fiscal-budgetary measures that the Tudose government is about to adopt, in line with the government program submitted on Thursday to the Parliament.
The measures proposed by the PSD-ALDE coalition and the effects that they would have on the economy have been detailed and those who spoke strongly emphasised that they are not in principle against some changes, but all measures would have to be based on impact studies, discussed in advance with the business community and „not applied overnight”.
