Back to customs duties

Senate’s Economic Panel on Wednesday amended Emergency Ordinance 297/2000, upon Government’s suggestion. The Ordinance stipulated some measures aimed at developing the activity of private entrepreneurs and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

SME minister Silvia Ciornei, who attended the panel’s discussions, stated that adjustments of some of the normative act stipulations, three months after it was endorsed, would clarify the text, thus avoiding misinterpretations.

The Ordinance’s new variant limits the range of raw materials that SMEs can import without paying customs duties to “those raw materials that are insufficient or lacking in Romania”. The SME minister claims that changes made by the Government will allow “SMEs to import only raw materials they really need.”

However, the list Ciornei referred to will be annually approved by Government decision. The SME minister could not specify the approximate date when the list is to be approved.

SMEs will be further exempt from the payment of customs duties for the imports of machines, industrial equipment and the know-how they need in order to develop their own production capacities. The new text specifies that it does not apply to car imports.

At the Government’s suggestion, an article from Ordinance 297 stipulating that “turnover on the previous year, not revenues, will be taxed,” meant to simplify the tax system, was also abrogated.

The minister specified that this article was redundant, as all legal persons will be levied taxes according to the new global income taxation law.