Since the beginning of the year, after the Decree on Trains (130/2021) entered into force, HotNews.ro has drawn attention to the fact that a large number of criminal cases may fall if the part regarding the re-criminalization of the act consisting of detention and non-payment, accordingly, collection and non-payment within 60 days from the date of payment of taxes and/or tax on withdrawn capital.

Unfortunately, the prophecy came true.

The problem is that there are many companies that have money from the state and because of this cannot pay on time.

At the time, the Ministry of Finance was aware that this was a problem, so it drafted a regulation to make changes that would allow ANAF to conduct a review before sending files to the prosecutor’s office.

Well, when that ordinance was adopted, those changes were not in the Official Gazette. Thus, the measure introduced by GEO 130/2021 remained unchanged.

What ANAF did this week

This week, ANAF sent almost 53,000 files to the police without checking whether the entrepreneurs had somehow failed to pay taxes to the budget through the state, which even the president of the treasury, Lucian Geiusz, confirmed (see statement below) .

“You know that since March 1, failure to pay contributions and income tax is already a crime. In cooperation with the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police, we submitted on Wednesday for the continuation of investigations – specific investigations carried out by the police in this case of evasion, which are already considered criminal acts – the number of 52,976 active taxpayers who registered as liabilities, the total amount is 372.93 million lei,” he said.

According to him, the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police should transmit the information to each district police inspectorate in order to initiate specific actions regarding the criminal investigation.

“This is the law, everyone must respect it, and all taxpayers must respect this law. If the vast majority of them understood this, and I thank them, there are 52,976 business entities that did not comply and, unfortunately, criminal prosecution will be initiated against them,” Geiusz said.

What the head of the tax service said when asked if they checked these taxpayers before the case was sent to the police

HotNews.ro asked Lucian Hayus if they checked these taxpayers before sending the file to the police, in the sense that they could not pay the state because the state owes them.

Lucian Geius: “The law does not provide that ANAF conducts analyses. The law is very clear: if 60 days have passed since the date, it is a crime. At the same time, ANAF cannot conduct criminal investigations. These analyzes are carried out by other institutions, these investigations will be carried out and after them there may be such situations as you are talking about, so it is possible, but it will be at the stage of the criminal investigation.

The Fiscal Code says that there should be no discrimination between the form of capital, the owner and everything else. Regardless of whether it is private capital, state capital, foreign capital, it is among these 52,976.”

Therefore, there may be innocent people among those files. Lucian Geiusz is right, he was only following the law (which is currently crooked). Since the law does not say that the inspection is mandatory, he did not do it. In addition to the fact that the justice system is flooded with many files that are already suppressed, it is stressful for some entrepreneurs until the situation is resolved.

Photo source: DreamStime.com