The European Commission found that Romania has made progress in recent years in terms of the mix of taxes and ANAF reform, but still has tax collecting problems, particularly VAT, the scarcity of collecting in this case is among the highest in the European Union, said on Thursday Carmen Marcus, analyst of economic policies with the European Commission Representation in Romania.
“The EC assessment is that there has been progress in recent years in terms of the mix of taxes and the ongoing reform of ANAF, but revenue collecting remains low, there are still shortages in VAT collecting, some of the highest in the EU,” Carmen Marcus said during a conference on issues of tax compliance.
The EC recommends to achieve and to maintain the medium-term budgetary objective (MTO).
Romania is already meeting the MTO since 2014, thus tax revenues are a central element of the public budget in this context. On the other hand, the EC recommends Romania to implement the strategy of comprehensive tax compliance and to strengthen the control systems to combat undeclared work.
According to Carmen Marcus, after three loan agreements with the IMF, WB and the EC, both Romanian and foreign specialists say that Romania was never better in macroeconomic terms. “The budget deficit is 1.5% of GDP; public debt is below 40% of GDP, far away from the 60% target set at European level. And in this building, fiscal policy is the first level above the foundation, it needs to be strengthened when the macroeconomic machine is shaking, and is also the first tier that can harm the macroeconomic stability so hardly attained in these years, with a massive effort both from the government and from the population,” said the EC representative.
Victor Lupu
I am in late 50s, great age to become a philosopher! Yet, I am doing my job in journalism, trying to deliver clear and accurate information to our readers, be them expats in Romania or people living abroad and interested in the developments taking place here.
I worked for several important newspapers, attended a Reuters scholarship, had collaborations with Al-Jazeera and Intelstrat. As journalist, I had the opportunity to interview several Romanian ministers and the NATO Secretary General at the time Javier Solana.
Anyway, these are old stories, currently I focus on this news website and, together with my colleagues, I do my best to achieve our goals.
I hope most of our readers will continue to access our website. Keep in touch with Romanian realities! Several rounds of elections are ahead, the courts are expected to deliver some important rulings that may change the entire domestic spectrum. We’ll be here to keep you informed!