The senators of the legal committee have passed on Tuesday a controversial bill drafted by the ruling Social Democrat Party (PSD) targeting the prevention and countering of tax evasion. More precisely, they voted an amendment saying that criminal charges in tax evasion files can be dropped if the prejudice is totally paid back, to which 50% of the owed sum is added.
“We mentioned that criminal prosecution is dropped if the prejudice is fully paid during the criminal prosecution and we added, besides the legal penalties to be paid, an extra share of 50% which applies to the owed sum in order to discourage tax evasion. This procedure can be applied to a person only once. Our priority is to recover the prejudice and to bring money to the state budget, not to send people in prison,” said the chairman of the legal committee in the Senate, SocDem Robert Cazanciuc, also a former Justice minister.
He added that the role of the legislator is to prevent some deeds, adding the Criminal Code stipulates that criminal charges can be dropped under certain circumstances. “It could also be a way of discouraging people to do break the law. The state’s interest is not to spend money on those who made mistakes, but to recover the prejudice first in order to discourage the non-payment of taxes,” Cazanciuc said.