Finance Minister: OMV Petrom will pay the solidarity tax until June

The Minister of Finance, Adrian Câciu, assures that OMV Petrom will pay the solidarity tax by June 25, as provided for by the legal deadline in the legislation for the profit tax. He denied, on Sunday evening on the Prima News television station, that the government did not want to tax the company from Energy.

“I stand by what I said, (OMV – ed.) will pay. Wait for June. What people forget is that this tax is declared on June 25 and paid on June 25. Before, he cannot pay, even if he wanted to, because this is the legal term for the profit tax”, said Adrian Câciu.

The Minister of Finance stated that there will be further discussions with the European executive, so that things are even clearer. “The commission understood all the loopholes in the regulation, I also said that it should come back with a clarification to the regulation”, he stated.

Asked if the Black Sea Oil & Gas company also falls within the regulations for paying the tax, the Government official confirmed this. “This regulation did not go to the finance minister or to the finance ministers of the member states. One thing must be understood, the regulation was made there (at the energy ministers – editor’s note), not at finance”, said the minister, pointing out that it would have been correct to go to ECOFIN as well.

Minister Câciu said that the revenues that the state estimates from the solidarity tax reach “3.9 billion lei, in total”, while 15 billion were collected from overtaxation.

In January this year, The OMV group announced that it will pay the solidarity tax in Austria, imposed by the European Union, but in Romania the OMV Petrom company anticipates that it does not meet the conditions to be eligible to pay this tax.