Govt. enacts salary, pension cuts laws, sends them to Parliament. Fiscal changes included

The Romanian Government had already enacted the legislation which cuts the public salaries, pensions and other social payments in the budget sector. The two pieces of law will be sent to the Parliament today, according to Emil Boc, who held a press conference late last night. Salaries will go down by 25 percent and pensions, by 15 percent, only until the end of this year, said Emil Boc, but only if the country's budget system will be restructured. The budget spending cut project includes a drop in salaries for employees of the Romanian Central Bank (BNR), the Romanian National Securities Commission (CNVM), the Private Pensions Supervision Commission and the Insurance Supervision Commission. Meanwhile, new measures for fighting tax evasion have been announced. The Government has issued a new emergency ordinance which states penalties for those who sells or hold more than 10,000 cigarettes or 200 liters of alcoholic beverages untaxed – between one and four years in prison. Duty – free cancellation was also included in the document. VAT will also be applied for the trade with cereals, vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, flowers, sugar and construction materials within EU. For the trade with these products within Romania, plus bread, the inverted taxation will be applied. Individuals who cross the border without declaring amounts larger than EUR 10,000 will go to prison between two and seven years and no longer pay just penalties. Excises of EUR 100 for a hektoliter of fermented beverages other than beer and wine were also included. The excise for similar, intermediary products, which have a higher alcohol concentration, was increased from EUR 1000/hektoliter, to EUR 165 per hektolier. Excised will also be applied to luxury products, although Romania canceled these excises last year as they were against the EU norms.