Romania’s junior ruling partner gives hopes to banks about “greed tax”

Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, co-president of Romania’s ruling coalition, told bankers’ representatives on February 19, before more detailed debates on this topic, that he remains open to amending the tax on banking assets, also known as “the greed tax”.

Tariceanu, who chairs the junior ruling partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) thus implied that his party might promote such proposals “based on sound reasoning," local Economica.net reported.

“If we can help, one way or another, we will,” he said, adding on a pro-market note that he is not concerned with the high profits posted by the banks during the past years.

Ahead of consultations with the bankers’ representatives, he briefed them on the outcome of the talks held with the National Bank of Romania (BNR) one day earlier: BNR remains open to both revising the methodology used to calculate the benchmark interest rates on the money market (ROBOR), and changing the formula for the supplementary tax levied to banks, Tariceanu assured.

"From our discussions with the BNR, it was clear that there is a willingness to reconsider how ROBOR is calculated.[…] As compared to the fixing session at 11.00 AM used to set ROBOR currently, we might think about calculating ROBOR from actual transactions over a certain period. Secondly, we discussed a new taxation formula for the banking sector, given the objective is lowering the loan interest rates. BNR came up with the idea that the loan/deposit interest rate differential could be used [for determining the financial assets tax]. The third thing I discussed with the BNR was the list of financial assets that should be waived from the assets taxation, such as government securities and government-funded programmes (e.g. First Home, Start-up Nation),” Tariceanu told bankers.

(Photo source: Facebook/Calin Popescu Tariceanu)