In the Official Gazette no. 319 dated 16 April 2020, the Emergency Government Ordinance no. 48/2020 on certain fiscal and financial measures was published, which provides new clarifications and tax facilities.
In the following, we will present a short summary of the most important measures implemented through the legislative act:
I. Extension of the deadline for the submission of annual financial statements regarding the year 2019 and of the accounting reports as of 31 December 2019 until 31 July 2020, inclusive.
II. Granting VAT refunds with subsequent tax audit. The provisions of the emergency ordinance also apply to the pending VAT returns for which the VAT refund decision in force was not issued until the date of entry into force of this emergency ordinance (16 April 2020).
However, the above-mentioned provisions do not apply in the following cases:
a) VAT returns for which, until the date of entry into force of the emergency ordinance, the tax audit has been initiated in order to settle the refund;
b) returns submitted by large and medium-sized taxpayers, which are settled after the tax audit has been carried out, in cases such as: (i) acts sanctioned as criminal offenses have been registered in their fiscal record; (ii) there is a risk of undue refund or (iii) voluntary winding up proceedings or insolvency proceedings have been initiated, except for those for which a reorganization plan has been confirmed;
c) returns submitted by other taxpayers than those referred to (b), which are settled after the tax audit is performed in advance, in cases which include, in addition to those already mentioned in (b), the following: (i) the taxpayer submits its first VAT return after its registration for VAT purposes; (ii) the balance of the negative amount of VAT requested for refund derives from more than 12 monthly reporting periods and respectively 4 quarterly reporting periods.
These new rules will cease to apply after 30 days from the end of the state of emergency period.
III. Other amendments to the Fiscal Code:
1. No tax facilities are granted for technical unemployment indemnities and time-off allowances granted to parents for child/children supervision. For example, no income tax exemption is granted in case of technical unemployment indemnities received by employees working in the IT or construction sector. These provisions apply to allowances granted from the unemployment insurance budget or the State budget as of April 2020.
2. Deduction is granted from the micro-enterprises tax of the amounts representing sponsorships to public institutions and authorities, including the specialized bodies of the public administration, within the limit provided by the Fiscal Code, based on the sponsorship contract, without the obligation for the respective beneficiary entities/cult units to be registered in the Registry of cult units/entities for which tax deductions are granted;
3. Benefits in kind granted to individuals who earn salary income or assimilated to salary income as a result of occupying positions considered by the employer as essential for carrying out the activity and being in preventive isolation at the work place or in specially dedicated areas to which no external persons have access, for a period determined by the employer, in the event of the establishment of a state of emergency, are not considered taxable income for income tax purposes and for social security purposes;
4. New rules are introduced on the use and circulation of ethyl alcohol, alcoholic beverages and energy products that constitute the private property of the State;
IV. Introducing an exemption on the specific tax. Taxpayers required to pay the specific-activity tax for the year 2020, do not owe a specific tax for the period in which they totally or partially interrupt their activity during the state of emergency period. The normative act also expressly establishes the conditions that must be met in order to benefit from these facilities.
V. Other amendments and derogations from the Fiscal Procedure Code:
1. No interest and penalties shall be computed and due for late payment of instalments from the schedules of instalments that are unpaid until the expiry of the period of 30 days from the end of the state of emergency period. Moreover, these tax obligations are not considered outstanding tax obligations. Also, the conditions for maintaining the validity of the instalments granted according to the law are suspended until the end of the 30 days term from the end of the state of emergency period. The normative document sets out a series of new rules.
2. Measures of enforcement, by summon, garnishment and selling of assets during an auction, of budgetary claims are suspended or not initiated, except the enforcement measure related to the recovery of the amounts established by judgments given in criminal matters.
3. The statute of limitations period for the right of the tax authority to establish tax claims and request enforcement, as well as that of the taxpayer to request the refund of tax claims, provided by the Fiscal Procedure Code, shall be suspended or it will not commence until the expiration of the term of 30 days from the end of the state of emergency.
The above-mentioned provisions will no longer apply after 30 days from the end of the emergency state.
VI. Amendment of the GEO 33/2020 on certain fiscal measures and the amendment of certain normative acts, in that the measure of actual non-payment of VAT at the customs office is also applied to goods such as production machines of protective masks or completely denatured ethyl alcohol used for the production of disinfectants, provided that certain rules are fulfilled;
VII. Suspension of the monthly and occasional draws of the Lottery of fiscal vouchers starting with the date of entry into force of the emergency ordinance, further to be resumed within 90 days from the date of end of the state of emergency.
VIII. Introduction of deferrals and exemptions for gambling operators.
Our dedicated team of attorneys & consultants may provide you with all the required assistance in connection with the most recent fiscal measures implemented through GEO 48/2020, in the context of the Covid19 pandemic in Romania. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any aspects in connection thereof.
Contact:
Alina Man, Managing Associate (alina.man@musat.ro)
Landline: 0040 21 202 59 00; Mobile: 0040 758 699 344