Bucharest City Hall works on website allowing tax payments

The Bucharest City Hall is planning a new web portal that will allow the online payment of taxes and fines, Economica.net reported. The website, estimated to cost RON 1.25 million (almost EUR 269,000), will be integrated with those of the district city halls, and with those of several other public institutions such as the public transport operator RATB, theaters and museums. It will also be integrated with Ghiseul.ro, the portal allowing the online payment of taxes, and with databases of the central administration. The residents of Bucharest and other visitors will be able to find on the new website information about the city, the activity of the city hall, and will have access to various services, among them paying local taxes and fines. They will also be able to file various documents online. According to the task book, the work on the new website is estimated to take 14 months. The site will have to be optimized for smartphones and will run in several languages. The winner of the bid should be announced in January of next year. Several other large cities across Romania allow the online payment of taxes either through their own portals or through affiliation with Ghiseul.ro. By mid-2016, 236 city halls in the country were enrolled or in the process of enrolling in the Ghiseul.ro system, Hotnews.ro reported. Romanian taxpayers, both individuals and companies, have been able to pay online the taxes they owe to the tax authority ANAF via Ghiseul.ro starting December last year. This April, the city hall of Cluj-Napoca, in western Romania, became the first local public administration in the country to issue town planning documents in an electronic format. The list of institutions enrolled in Ghiseul.ro can be checked here. Online tax payment system in Romania sees 215% increase in transactions editor@romania-insider.com