The PSD wants big companies to pay a profit tax of 16%, but not less than 1% of turnover, regardless of who will pay the tax, because some can very easily shift the costs to the population, if we are talking about supermarkets and energy. This is in conditions where inflation is already high. Therefore, prices will rise even more.

*The tax will apply to companies with a turnover of more than 100 million euros

HotNews.ro spoke with lawyer Gabriel Biris, former state secretary in the Ministry of Finance and tax expert.

He made an analysis of this tax for companies over 100 million euros.

One is who pays: that is, a company with more than 100 million euros.

Other: who will last?

*VAT is also paid by companies and sellers, but it is borne by the citizen.

“Then you look at the structure of the big companies and ask yourself: how many of them can pass on the additional costs with taxes to the customers? Obviously, anything that means retail and energy companies will be able to do that, especially in a super-inflation environment,” he said.

According to him, of the first 350 companies, almost half of the cost goes to the final consumer, that is, to the population that PSD wants to protect.

Who can not transfer the cost? Exporters!

“They compete in markets where this tax does not exist. For them, this is an element of expenses,” Birish explained.

In addition, according to him, there are so-called production units on the industrial production side.

“I mean, there are factories that belong to some groups, and they’re not really in the free market. They are integrated into the group and basically their purchases are through the group, because they produce centrally for all the factories, and the sales are on the group,” said the former secretary of state.

• If you have a manufacturing unit, the transfer pricing rules do not allow you to set a large margin there. You have a margin of 1% – 2%, but no more.

• Romania has a lower corporate tax rate than most Western countries. They would accuse you of transferring profits to Romania.

“So, according to the rules of transfer pricing, markups at manufacturing enterprises are small. They have a high turnover. You hit the spot and that 1% is equivalent to 16% with a margin of 6%. They cannot have a 6% margin,” he said.

Corporate tax is like the story of the elephant in the china shop

“This sales tax debate is like the story of the elephant in the china shop. Do you put an elephant in a shop and be surprised that it breaks your china?” says Birish.

• “The reason this world has corporate tax everywhere is because it works. Why are we talking about something that others had but removed, or implemented and thinking about removing, or were temporary measures against various industries and populists? “

“They (PSD no) made it clear that it would be a minimum tax. Income tax of 16% remains, but not less than 1% of turnover. Why only for large companies? If you have a company that has 95 million euros and competes with one that has 101 million euros, what do you do?” asks the lawyer.

• You can sit like this and think that it makes no sense for the company to work at a loss for years, that this is also an argument that it makes investments, etc. That’s what ANAF is for.

“If you want to deal with this issue, do it sectorally, as they did with this solidarity tax. The expected tax for CAEN codes X, Y, Z is 0.2% quarterly. For retail it is 0.5% or 1% etc. Otherwise, you destroy the industry,” he said.

• Let’s take a look at Dacia’s profit margin. It is small. So is Ford.

Manipulation of PSD figures in tax promotion for large companies

PSD people make the mistake of manipulating numbers.

“They say it’s not normal when the biggest companies in Romania pay a profit tax of 0.8% of their turnover, while micro-enterprises pay 1%,” Biris explained.

• PSD did it: how much tax did they collect from the first 350 companies that had a general circulation and gave them 0.8%

“But of these 350 companies, about 50 are unprofitable. About 80% of them come from state-owned companies. If you remove from the staff those who have losses, you no longer have 0.8%. Maybe you have more than 1%,” explained Gabriel Birish.

Read also:What types of taxes and fees does the PSD want after the government crackdown: a solidarity tax and a reduction in labor taxation