Romanian lawmakers seek to sweeten penalties for tax evasion with controversial bill

Romanian lawmakers passed on December 19 a draft bill that lowers the penalties for those who cause damages of up to EUR 1 million through tax evasion.

Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu rejected the paternity of the specific provision, which he, however, defended.

"I'm interested in the money they have to give me back [to the budget]," PM Ciolacu, one of those who initiated the bill, said, quoted by Hotnews.ro.

Opposition parties USR and Forţa Dreptei referred the bill to the Constitutional Court.

Under a provision of the bill, those causing damages to the budget under this threshold can completely escape criminal liability if they pay the damage plus 15%. The bill's declared purpose was increasing tax evasion penalties and allowing the anticorruption prosecutors (DNA) to take over evasion cases of over EUR 1 million.

The bill was submitted by the leaders of the ruling coalition, Liberal leader Nicolae Ciuca and Social Democrat leader Marcel Ciolacu. Their project amends Law 241/2005 to prevent and combat tax evasion.

European prosecutor Laura Codruța Kovesi said that how this proposal was voted on (namely extremely quickly) raises serious questions, to start with.

"Typically, in criminal law, we apply non-punishment cases in circumstances that are judged to be little harmful to society. It is difficult to understand how tax fraud of such a magnitude can be considered harmless enough not to be punished by the criminal law," Kovesi also said, according to G4media.ro.

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