Cholaku’s government wants to tax multinational companies a little more. So far, nothing new, except that it is not clear who he wants to hit. If companies invested and therefore had no profit, this is a misfortune. They will hit right.

Proposed measure: multinational corporations with a turnover of more than 50 million euros pay 16% income tax, but not less than 1% of turnover.

First, consider the companies that exceed this indicator. Note that they include OMV Petrom, Rompetrol, Lukoil, Mol, Engie, Electrică Furnizare, Hidroelectrica. There are only a few of them.

There are also supermarkets Lidl, Kaufland, Mega Image, Metro, Profi, Auchan, Carrefour.

In addition to those listed above, we are also talking about telephone companies Orange and Vodafone or other corporations such as Ford or Samsung, Coca Cola. Dacia is also on the list.

Let’s take an example. We assume that the government will publish this measure in the Official Gazette and the above firms must apply.

*We do not indicate which one, so as not to advertise and not be relevant

In the case of one of them, in 2022 he paid income tax of about 147.4 million euros on revenues of 2.97 billion euros. Suppose that he will have to pay 1% on the same income. This would mean 29.7 million euros, that is, less. Of these two amounts, he will eventually pay income tax because it is the larger amount.

The government taxes you if you make investments

At the other extreme is the supermarket chain, which last year made investments, modernized stores and opened new ones. That’s why he didn’t have a profit, that’s why he didn’t pay 16% to the state. He was trying to gain market share, he’s just struggling in a competitive market. With a turnover of 1.9 billion euros, he will pay 19 million euros. In this situation, it is simply not worth making more investments, as they require additional costs.

I have found similar situations in some energy companies.

It is very important that the government conducts an analysis before applying measures to all companies, assuming that they are all thieves. Investments can be killed. This is in addition to certain inflationary effects as these additional costs may be passed on to prices.

Exporters will be directly affected

At the beginning of the year, we were talking about the same event, but for companies with a turnover of 100 million euros. Then HotNews.ro interviewed lawyer Gabriel Biris, former state secretary of the Ministry of Finance. The discussion remains relevant.

If above we have given you examples of companies that can transfer costs to us, there are also some that cannot.

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 divisions 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 them, that 1% is equivalent to 16% with a margin of 6%. They cannot have a 6% margin,” Gabriel Birish also noted.

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