A state secretary in Romania’s energy minister, Doru Visan, said on February 19 that he instructed the relevant bodies to defer by one year the turnover tax, provisioned by the Government under the emergency ordinance (OUG) 114/2018, Economica.net reported.

Notably, the Energy Ministry is supervised by the junior ruling partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), through minister Anton Anton.

Finance minister Eugen Teodorovici, who represents the senior ruling party - the Social Democratic Party (PSD), had vocally rejected such an option one day before, triggering a conflict with ALDE President Calin Popescu Tariceanu. The vocal clash turned into tangible developments as the energy regulator ANRE, also under the supervision of ALDE, has already instructed the energy companies, on February 19, to defer indefinitely sending the details needed to calculate the turnover tax.

There was specific deadline mentioned, and it is not clear whether the one-year deferral will eventually take place as the senior ruling party insists on levying it as of January 2019.

Notably, while the Government has not included in the 2019 budget planning revenues generated by the “greed tax” on banks’ assets, it projected revenues generated by the new turnover tax in the energy sector.

editor@romania-insider.com

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