Romania’s Government decided last week to transfer most social contributions paid by companies to the employees motivating that many companies in Romania fail to pay the social contributions.

Moreover, the Government wants criminal charges against companies that fail to pay the social contributions of their employees, and the administrators of these companies could go to jail.

However, official data from the tax agency ANAF show that state-owned companies have the highest social contribution debts, reports local Hotnews.ro. Compania Nationala a Huilei, a former state-owned coal producer that went bankrupt, has RON 3.7 billion (EUR 800 million) worth of debt to the social contribution budget. The state company in charge of closing unused mines also has RON 1 billion worth of debt and the railway company CFR has some RON 600 million unpaid social contributions.

The Bucharest organization of the governing Social Democratic Party (PSD) also had over RON 100,000 worth of debt to the social contribution budget.

Finance Minister Ionut Misa said on Wednesday that almost 158,000 companies in Romania had failed to pay the social contributions of some 2.1 million employees. However, official ANAF data quoted by local Profit.ro show that only 35,750 companies had overdue fiscal debts, which included unpaid taxes and social contributions.

editor@romania-insider.com