Researchers in Romania won’t pay income tax anymore

Romania’s Government has decided that people doing research and development (R&D) will be exempted from paying the 16% tax on salaries or any other similar revenues they get for their work starting August. With this measure, which has a low impact on the state’s budget revenues, the Government aims to stimulate local research and development services, which are underfinanced at the moment. “Romania spends almost 20 times less than European average, for research and development, per capita. On the other hand, we see in various economic sectors that engineers, specialists, researchers are increasingly solicited to bring added value to investments made in Romania, in various economic sectors,” Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said earlier this week. “By the incentives we offer, we hope to foster both private companies’ investment in research and development, and the interest of young people to train and work in this area,” Ciolos added. A similar tax exemption has been given to computer programmers for many years. Romania ranks last in the EU for research expenses to GDP Young Romanian researcher gets EUR 1.5 mln from the European Research Council for her project editor@romania-insider.com