Businessmen complain fiscal legislation difficult to apply

The CONPIROM representatives claim that companies are finding it increasingly hard to understand and apply the fiscal legislation and the recent changes brought to the Fiscal Code will encourage tax dodging. The latter, in the employers' view, has reached as much as 60 per cent in some sectors following the VAT hike, Mediafax informs.

"The standards recently adopted by the government are not harmonized, they cancel each other. The fiscal policy's lack of coherence will likely lead to the growth of the underground economy. The drastic taxation system will lead to a situation in which many entrepreneurs will end up organizing their activity in the gray or underground economy. The current standards will encourage many of those that were tempted to resort to tax dodging," Vasile Turcu, president of the Employers Confederation of Romanian Industry, stated during a press conference on Tuesday. In his opinion, the underground economy grew in recent weeks because of the VAT hike from 19 to 24 per cent.

"We are holding talks with food industry companies. Tax dodging has reached 60 per cent within the food industry sector although the statistics show that the economy's overall level stands at 30 per cent. People are taking risks in order to keep their employees, otherwise they shut down their companies," Turcu said. On the other hand, CONPIROM vice president Constantin Dumitru stated that the fiscal legislation has become "a mockery." "We cannot read it; it has hundreds of modifications, modifications brought to modifications," he said.

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