Romania to enforce e-VAT regulations in August

Romania’s finance minister, Marcel Bolos, announced in a Facebook post that the e-VAT regulations, aimed at fighting tax evasion, will be enforced as of August 1 - prompting concerns among accountants who claim that the bill was not properly discussed in advance and may cause bottlenecks.

Under the new regulations consulted by Profit.ro, each company subject to VAT will have to validate on a monthly basis the list of VAT operations declared by its business partners. Discrepancies should be explained, and failure to comply may result in tax inspections and fines.

The VAT list, compiled by the tax collection agency ANAF, will be received for validation on the 20th of each month and must be validated by the company “within the legal deadline” – namely by the 25th of the month.

Currently, the companies are filling such lists of VAT operations on a monthly basis, to be filed by the 25th of the next month.

Under the new regulations, if the discrepancy between the ANAF’s list, compiled from the documents reported by all companies in the country under the e-Invoice system and other similar centralised electronic systems, and the list submitted by the respective company exceeds 20% or RON 1,000 (EUR 200), the company is required to provide further explanations.

Failure to provide the requested information is an indicator of fiscal risk. Based on the fiscal risk rating of a particular company, ANAF may initiate a fiscal inspection or anti-fraud control.

Accountants, commenting on the Facebook page where minister Bolos announced the e-VAT implementation as of August 1 and quoted by Hotnews.ro, argued that the decision was not publicly discussed, will generate a huge amount of work within the five days between the 20th and 25th of the month, and the discrepancies between the VAT lists sent by ANAF and the actual VAT lists will be highly frequent for objective reasons out of control and not necessarily linked to VAT frauds.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/Sabin Cirstoveanu)