Local tax payments by card up a quarter in Romania but official tax collection website covers only a small fraction

More than 300,000 card transactions for paying local taxes were recorded in the first nine months of this year in Romania. However, only about 25,000 of them were made via the website ghiseul.ro, the special website set up by Romanian authorities to make the payment of local taxes easier. However, many city halls across Romania are yet to be added to the system, meaning residents there can't use the online service. Only 68 municipalities were part of the system as of October 11, 2013. Overall, the number of card transactions for paying taxes was up by 37 percent on the same period of 2012, according to Cătălin Creţu, general manager for Romania of Visa Europe. “I believe online tax payments have two obstacles: the possibility for city halls to over-tax those who want to pay their taxes online by card, and the lack of an efficient strategy to distribute the online access credentials, which allows access to millions of tax payers to the website ghiseul.ro to find out how much they need to pay and to make the payment,” said Catalin Cretu. In order to obtain the credentials needed to access one's account and pay online, tax payers currently have to receive them by post from their respective city hall. In the case they forget these credentials and want to change them they have to submit documents in person to the city hall. editor@romania-insider.com