President Klaus Iohannis and the Minister of Finance point out to ANAF the problem of the 2023 budget. While Iohannis says that “the tax office needs to move a little better”, Minister Adrian Cachiu did the same, recently noting that “the slowdown in revenue collection is 4.7 billion lei compared to the schedule” and that “it is good to strengthen the collection”. .

There is a public document on the website of the Ministry of Finance that explains in black and white why less than the forecast was collected: a certificate on budget execution.

What is written in the document of the Ministry of Finance

In this note, we see the reasons why the various sections collected less, in addition to what HotNews.ro presented last week.

*What you see in quotes are the phrases in the document

1. More would be collected from payroll tax revenue, but… amazingly, legislation passed last year by the Coalition meant that income tax is no longer payable on agriculture and food (as well as CASS – see point 2 ).

Here is a phrase from the document: “Revenues from the wage tax recorded an advance of 9.5%, lower than the development of the wage fund in the economy (14.5%). In addition, the dynamics of this category of income was also affected by the expansion of benefits granted to construction workers in the agricultural sector and the food industry (a negative effect of the exemption from income tax on wages, according to Law No. 135/2022)”

2. And more would have been collected from the medvnesk, but the same law exempts these hundreds of thousands of workers from payment, even though they are subsidized.

“Insurance premiums recorded 24.10 billion lei, increasing by 11.0% (year/year). As in the case of the wage tax, their dynamics were lower than the dynamics of the wage fund in the economy (14.5%), and due to the expansion in the agricultural sector and the food industry of the benefits granted to builders, in accordance with Law No. 135/2022″ .

When you give discounts, you usually pay lessthan you expected.

3. A different situation with VAT. The good thing is that more money has been returned to companies: refunds have increased significantly. That is, they were no longer “arrested for a long time” by the state just in order to pull out numbers and brag about them.

“Net revenues from VAT amounted to 17.45 billion lei, increasing by 1.9% (year/year). At the same time, VAT reimbursement was 77.6% higher compared to the level of reimbursement for the same period last year (+1.82 billion lei).”

4. What happened to excise taxes? The change in OG 16/2022 (the one that increased many taxes) also had a change that negatively affected the collection.

“Revenues from excise duties amounted to 5.32 billion lei, recording a decrease of 9.1% (year/year). This evolution is explained by the reduction of excise revenues from tobacco products by 11.9%, respectively, with 6.1% of revenues from excise taxes on energy products

– in the conditions of a decrease in the level of excise duty from January 1, 2023″

So these four things happened on the tax revenue side, and they are all mentioned by the Treasury.

HotNews.ro revealed last week, presenting information from a government document it obtained, that companies involved in the top 10 economic activities in Romania, which brought a lot of money to the budget, seem to be in trouble. They declared and transferred taxes to the state more slowly.

Seeing this, ANAF went to some taxpayers to see what was going on. Among other things, the number of withdrawals and calls has increased.

The government wants to save 20 billion lei, which is called a “hole” in the press. The problem is that the budget was written incorrectly. Expenses were grossly understated and revenues overstated. The same was recently said by one of the government officials of the BNR.