The authorities held meetings with various business associations regarding the upcoming tax increase. PNL Finance Minister Marcel Bolosh also participated in some of them. He came up with the theory of the blind man, or rather Bănuță Văduva, as a metaphor for future fiscal changes, i.e. tax increases.

Gilda Lazar, director of corporate affairs and communications for JTI Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria, confirmed what Bolosh told the business community.

• “We’ve also seen the debate that the Liberals don’t want a tax increase. Liberal leaders who say this probably haven’t talked to Finance Minister Marcel Bolosh. He has a completely different view.”

“What is a blind theory? The Minister of Finance is a priest. He gave us the example of Bănuță Văduvei,” she said.

• “This theory is already known in the political environment. I met with several representatives of the authorities who already know her.”

You also saw in the movies: at the end of the service, someone comes with a plate and everyone puts a penny on it. It is called: Widow’s Money.

“The world needs to see how you turn on a dime. Theoretically, you won’t be able to do anything with this penny, but at the end, when all the pennies in that bowl, in that plate will be collected, you will be able to do something with this amount,” says Lazar.

According to her, it would be about a certain solidarity in need, because it must be demonstrated in front of the community.

“Otherwise, if you have something and want to give it to a charity box, the world doesn’t see you, you don’t know, nobody praises you. This is the theory promoted by the Minister of Finance, and we will have to learn to live with it,” Gilda Lazar also stated during the CLCC conference.

She says she doesn’t understand how anyone can think prices will drop when taxes go up. Taxes always fall on the consumer and are directly reflected in inflation.

There is currently no strategy or impact analysis at Coalition level, just a collection of ideas for tax increases.

“From the meetings we have had so far, both at the level of the prime minister, and at the level of the deputy prime minister, and at the level of the leader of the Senate, we tried to understand what we want. Everything is very simple: you need money. Since money is needed, as always, they point the finger at industries that bring money to the budget,” says Gilda Lazar.

Marcel Bolosh considers the taxation of vices a holy matter / He proposed an experiment to companies

“I have not seen specific proposals to reduce expenses, but to give more. There are hundreds of secretaries of state, many employees about whom little is known. There is no proposal to arrange the garden, but there is a proposal to collect as much as possible from all places,” said Lazar.

• “For Mr. Bolos, the taxation of vices is, so to speak, a holy matter. He told us he couldn’t imagine a package of measures without a vice tax.”

“Vices, as his lordship calls them, are already heavily taxed. For tobacco, we have just finished negotiating a growth calendar for several months. This is a 5-year calendar that has been in effect since last year, and two increases have already taken place: in August and April,” she said.

According to her, how many times the excise duty was suddenly and uncontrollably increased, let’s see in 2009-2010, whether in 2014 smuggling also increased.

She said that Bolosh told them that they would raise the excise tax, and if smuggling increased, they would change and correct it along the way.

“You can’t do trial and error, experiment with an industry that is a colossus. This is 7% of tax revenues, more than 45% of excise revenues. You can’t play,” said Gilda Lazar.

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Options put on the PSD and PNL table to close the budget hole. Where do the “visions” of social democrats and liberals diverge and what do they agree on?