(P) Electronic Cash Register – means to fight tax evasion – new regulations in Romania

Taking into account the need to combat tax evasion, to increase the collection of revenues, to ensure better monitoring of the activity of economic operators performing retail deliveries of goods and services, directly to the population, since January 2014, the Government issued draft amendment to O.U.G. no. 28/1999, regarding the obligation of the economic operators to use electronic cash register. The project aimed among other things, the mandatory use of the cash registers with electronic journal by the economic operators and removing the cash register with journal roller. At the end of 2014, the Government approved the Emergency Ordinance no. 91/23.12.2014 amending and completing the O.U.G. nr. 28/1999, regarding the obligation of the economic operators to use electronic cash registers. The new provisions require that the economic operators who receive in full or partial, cash or using credit cards/debit cards or cash substitutes retail value of the delivered goods and the services carried out directly by the population are forced to use electronic cash registers. The economic operators obliged by law to use the electronic cash registers, for issuing tax receipts, must gradually replace (transition period of about a year and a half) the electronic cash registers equipped with journal paper rolls, with the ones equipped with the electronic journal and connect them to the system of supervision and monitoring, in order to transmit data to A.N.A.F. The big taxpayers will use the new devices starting with 1 April 2016, while from 1 July 2016 the same obligation will be for the medium taxpayers. In what concerns the small taxpayers, they will be forced to use the devices with electronic journal starting with 1 November 2016. From 1 January 2016 it will be forbidden the trade of electronic cash registers with journal roller. This measure aims to ensure conditions for fair competition between taxpayers, to improve the control activities and to ensure the necessary leverage to reduce tax evasion in the retail and services delivered directly to the population. Such a measure was taken by the majority of European countries, including Croatia, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania is among the few European countries that still use the old generation devices, with paper rolls. The advantages that the new system of cash registers equipped with electronic journal bring to retailers are: the elimination of the acquisition costs of the paper rolls (average economy / year/ cash register ≈ EUR 150), the elimination of the costs with the storage areas for a period of two years, a more effective management and control due to the possibility of informatics processing of data submitted on electronic support. The provisions of the normative act creates the legal framework for drawing up a National register of evidence of the electronic cash registers, and the subsequent implementation of the procedure of surveillance and monitoring of the functioning of the electronic cash registers, as a measure to combat tax evasion. The procedure for connecting the electronic cash registers to a national informatics system of surveillance and monitoring of fiscal data will be established by A.N.A.F., in 6 months after the expiration of the transitional periods for all economic operators that fall under the normative act (respectively, after the maximum 390 days, term provided by law for small taxpayers). The recent provisions have modified the content of