Tax News Between 31 December 2020 – 13 January 2021
On 31 December 2020, GEO no. 226/2020 which amends several normative acts was published in the Official Gazette. Also, several other legal acts were adopted in this period. Please find below the main relevant changes:
1. GEO NO. 226/2020 – ENTERED INTO FORCE ON 31 DECEMBER 2020
General provisions of GEO no. 226/2020:
The possibility of granting holiday vouchers under the Law no. 165/2018 is postponed until 1 January 2022. The employees of the public sector will continue to receive holiday vouchers for 2021, following the provisions of GEO No. 8/2009, but they will be issued only in electronic form.
The value of a penalty point for determining the fines for 2021 is maintained at RON 145.
The supply of: medical devices for the in vitro diagnosis of COVID-19, vaccines against
COVID-19, as well as vaccination and testing services other than those exempted from
VAT under Article 292 of the Romanian Tax Code, are exempt from VAT. The exemption
is valid until 31 December 2022 and will apply only to medical devices compliant with the applicable requirements of Directive 98/79/EC and other relevant European legislation
The intra-Community acquisition of Remdesivir from the pharmaceutical company Gilead is exempt from VAT until 31 December 2022.
No VAT payment shall be made to the customs authorities on imports of the goods specified at article 331 para (2) letters (b), (c) and (i) to (k) of the Romanian Tax Code, namely:
Wood and wood materials;
Cereals and technical plants, including seeds;
Mobile phones, Devices with integrated circuits such as microprocessors and central processing units;
Game consoles, PC tablets and laptops.
The obligation of the economic operators which are carrying out operations through vending machines which operate with card payments, or with banknotes/coins, to equip the machines with electronic cash registers is postponed until 31 December 2021.
The sanctioning of taxpayers for not connecting the electronic cash registers with the purpose of submitting tax data to ANAF, is postponed until 31 March 2021. The elimination of the 30% limitation of the deduction of the receivables impairment is
postponed until 1 January 2022.
The application of the 5% VAT rate for the supply of housing units up to EUR 140,000 is postponed until 1 January 2022.
The deadline within which debtors may benefit from staggered payments under the provisions of the GEO no. 181/2020 is extended from 15 December 2020 to 1 January – 31 March 2021.
BirișGoran comment: This measure seems to have been adopted in a haste, without any preliminary consultations and it affects an important market. The increase of the threshold was also important for the New House programme (in Romanian: Noua Casă), which is now crippled. The deadline within which debtors may benefit from staggered payments under the provisions of the GEO no. 181/2020 is extended from 15 December 2020 to 1 January – 31 March 2021.
PROVISIONS RELATING TO THE GRANTING OF INDEMNITIES TO PERSONS AFFECTED BY THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The indemnities granted under GEO no. 30/2020 to: professionals/individuals who
have concluded individual employment agreements under Law no. 1/2005 on the operation of cooperatives/lawyers/athletes and ancillary personnel/individuals who
obtain income only form copyright and who have their activity suspended, do NOT constitute income from economic activity for the abovementioned categories. For these indemnities:
The income tax and social contributions shall be determined separately from the income realized from the economic activity;
The amounts will not be taken into account when exceeding the threshold for (i) the shift from quota-based determination of the income tax to real system determination of the income tax, and (ii) the 12 minimum gross wages for the payment of pensions contribution
and healthcare contribution;
The 10% bonification to be granted starting with 2021 cannot be obtained.
The professionals who receive indemnities as a result of reduced working time (under GEO no. 132/2020) are required to calculate the tax liabilities of the gross amount of the
received indemnity (25% – pensions; 10%- healthcare and 10% – income tax). Individuals receiving indemnities for reduced working time (employees or professionals), as well as individuals who benefit from the granting of paid leave for the supervision of children, cannot benefit from tax incentives for the received indemnities.
Professionals who have their own pension fund system and receive the 75% allowance
of the average wage will owe pensions contributions according to the rates
specified in the Romanian Tax Code and will pay the resulting amount to their own
pension fund system.
Individuals who benefit from any indemnities granted during the state of emergency, state of alert or leave days in the context of the pandemic situation (for suspension of employment, for reduction of working hours, for revenues which are affected) may not make payments for supporting non-profit units/ units of worship amounting to 3.5% of the income tax derived from the indemnities.
The provisions on indemnities will apply starting with the revenues related to January 2021 or, correspondingly, for the revenues related to the year 2021.
CHANGES TO GEO NO. 69/2020
The definition of outstanding principal budgetary obligations is extended in order
to include the principal budgetary obligations owed by the debtor subject to the insolvency proceedings due by 31 March 2020, irrespective of the existence of a debt table or a debt repayment program.
The date by which the payment obligations for which a payment facility or the suspension of the enforcement of the tax administrative document is in force, are considered to be outstanding on 31 March 2020, is extended from 15 December 2020 to 31 March 2021, after which date the payment facility and the suspension of the enforcement stops.
In the case of customs claims, the settlement decision regarding additional obligations shall be treated as a tax decision, and if the settlement decision was issued at the request of the taxpayer, it shall be treated as the amending tax declaration.
The deadline for submitting the request for the annulment of accessories is extended with the period from 1 January 2021 to 31 March 2021.
The deadline relating to non-annulment of accessories/ loss of postponement of accessories in the case of submission only of the notification and not of the annulment request is extended from 15 December 2020 to 31 March 2021.
Debtors who only submitted the notification for the annulment of tax obligations for which garnishment measures have been applied until 14 May 2020, can pay the amounts specified in the garnishment order from the unavailable amounts, other than the postponed amounts for annulment, in the interval between 14 May – 15 December 2021 and 1 January – 31 March 2021.
The deadline until which debtors who are beneficiaries of staggered payments can benefit from the annulment of accessories is extended until 31 March 2021.
If the staggered payments are completed, debtors will not pay the accessories related to the interval between 14 May and 15 December 2021 and 1 January to 31 March 2021. If they have been paid alongside with the staggered installments after 14 May 2020, they shall be returned.
If the staggering payments only include accessory obligations, these are no longer due and paid.
The debtors for whom the tax authority rejected a reimbursement request which was pending at 31 March 2021, can benefit of the annulment of the accessories if they pay the principal tax obligations on which the annulment depends, and if they are not settled by compensation, within 30 days after receiving the rejection decision.
PROVISIONS FOR AMENDING GO NO. 6/2019
The period for the adoption of measures for restructuring the principal outstanding tax
obligations is extended. According to the modification, it will be possible to restructure the outstanding tax liabilities on 31 December 2020, instead of 31 July, as specified before.
The deadline by which budgetary obligations are considered to be outstanding is extended, and will also include the tax obligations declared/ determined by decision after 1 January
2021, but relating to periods until 31 December 2020, as well as the tax obligations between the entry into force of the GEO No. 29/2020 (21 March) and 31 December 2020.
In order to implement the payment facility of budgetary obligations, the debtor must,
by the date of submission of the restructuring request, pay the budgetary obligations due between 1 January 2021 and the date of submission of the restructuring request.
Debtors who have already submitted their restructuring application may maintain it in
accordance with the provisions in force at that past date or choose to redesign the plan to include the obligations which are outstanding at 31 December 2020.
OTHER CHANGES SPECIFIED BY GEO NO. 226/2020
The deadline until which the reimbursement requests submitted through the negative VAT returns are solved with subsequent tax inspection is extended until 31 March 2021.
The deadline until which no additional tax obligations are due for the late payment of
installments in the staggered payment schedule is extended until 31 March 2021.
In the case of debtors who want to benefit from the provisions of GEO no. 69/2020 for
the annulment of accessories and who at the date of entry into force of the present GEO:
4. MINISTRY OF PUBLIC FINANCES ORDER NO. 3192/2020 – THE AMENDMENT OF THE PROCEDURE FOR COMMUNICATION BY ELECTRONIC MEANS OF REMOTE
TRANSMISSION BETWEEN THE MFP/CENTRAL TAX BODY AND INDIVIDUALS, LEGAL PERSONS
The order extends the types of documents which can be transmitted by SPV (in addition
to tax returns which can be currently transmitted) to documents such as registration forms and other forms made by individuals/legal entities, or any requests submitted by other entities (not only those involving the obtaining documents/ information on the tax situation).
5. ANAF ORDER NO. 4156/2020 – THE AMENDMENT OF THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR
COMPLETING THE ADMINISTRATIVE DOCUMENT IN ELECTRONIC FORMAT (E-DA) USING THE APPLICATION EMCS-RO-MOVEMENT CONTROL OF MOVEMENTS WITH EXCISABLE PRODUCTS IN SUSPENSION/ EXEMPTION/ EXCLUSION EXCISE REGIME.
Through the order, the manner in which the goods are kept after they arrived at their
destination in order to possibly be inspected by the customs authorities is modified, as
follows:
The receiver has the obligation to keep the goods at the place of receipt until a report is issued by the customs authorities through the information system of whether an inspection will be performed or not;
If the receiver is informed about the performance of an inspection, he has the right to unload the goods from the means of transport. After being informed about the performance of the inspection, the inspection of the goods at destination shall be carried out no later than 12 o’clock at noon on the following working day.
The order enters into force on 9 January 2021.
6. ANAF ORDER NO. 4136/2020 – THE AMENDMENT OF ANAF ORDER NO. 3725/2017 FOR THE APPROVAL OF THE TAX REGISTRATION FORMS OF THE TAXPAYERS AND OF THE TYPES OF TAX OBLIGATIONS WHICH FORM THE TAX
VECTOR
The Order proposes to ensure the possibility to submit all the declarations subsequent to the tax registration through electronic means, by filling out the form 700 “Declaration for
registration/modification by electronic means of the tax obligations included in the tax
vector”, so that by this form, taxpayers will be able to submit the following forms:
registration for VAT purposes;
mentions in the tax vector regarding the VAT;
clarifications regarding the change of the tax period for the taxable persons registered for VAT purposes who use the calendar quarter as a tax period and who carry out an intra-community acquisition of goods taxable in Romania;
making statements regarding the application/termination of the application of the VAT upon collection system;
registration/modification of the tax domicile;
registration of additional places of business.
The order enters into force on 30 March 2021.
*N O T I C E: This Tax Alert is only provided for information purposes and is not intended to be deemed as a legal opinion; therefore, no decision can be taken based on this Tax Alert. An opinion may be provided only after analyzing the particular facts and circumstances, as well as in consideration of the issues which cannot be approached in this document. BirișGoran SPARL has copyright over this document ©2020. All rights reserved. Any distribution or reproduction of any part of or of the entire document is
prohibited in any form without the express written consent from BirișGoran.
