Foreign investors make peace with Finance Ministry

The Foreign Investors Council (FIC) has announced the Finance Ministry came up with a series of solutions to FIC representatives’ suggestions about a conduct code for the fiscal authorities and the repayment of VAT in due time.
FIC’s and Finance Ministry’s representatives met only one day after Ruxandra Stan, the Council’s executive chairman said the fiscal authorities displayed an aggressive attitude and approach towards foreign investors.
“The Foreign Investors Council on September 9 met with Finance minister Mihai Tanasescu and discussed a series of issues the Council member companies are facing. The talks focused on three topics: introducing the Conduct Code for the fiscal authorities, eliminating VAT repayment delays and devising a fiscal strategy for Romania. The minister and the Finance Ministry representatives had already come up with solutions to the above-mentioned topics,” FIC says. FIC is an organisation comprising almost 90 members, most of which are multinational companies, with investments of more than 4 billion euros in Romania.
The Council recommended the authorities to have the new Fiscal Code include a Conduct Code for fiscal authorities, which should clarify taxpayers’, as well as tax inspectors’ rights and obligations, because controls in many cases last too long and lack precise goals. In FIC’s opinion, this code of conduct should include a conflict solving mechanism as an alternative to high-cost long terms set by courts of law
The Council says the Finance Ministry has already devised the first version of the “Code of Conduct for fiscal authorities” draft and put together a “Practical guide on reconciling the accounting and the taxation for those companies applying the regulations in line with the international accounting standards,” aimed at fiscal inspectors.
The Foreign Investors Council says that even though the legislation in force allows for VAT repayment prior to the actual control, this provision has not been implemented unfortunately, so that the taxpayers keep experiencing significant delays of one year or more in getting the VAT repaid. FIC says these delays are generating serious cash flow problems for exporters mainly, as they are in a chronic VAT recovery condition. Furthermore, taxpayers that have trouble getting the VAT back, also have trouble getting the interests due because of these delays back.
“The Finance minister notified the Foreign Investors Council representatives that the VAT repayment issue is specific to Bucharest and that he had decided to dispatch field staff to the financial administrations in Bucharest, so that the VAT repayment applications could be processed faster,” FIC says.
Foreign investors’ representatives also recommended the authorities to go public with their tax strategy for the next three to five years. The Finance minister told them they would see the first draft of the Fiscal Strategy and also mentioned the Economic Pre-accession Plan, which sets the main macroeconomic guidelines for Romania’s development until 2006.
miruna.lebedencu@zf.ro