Romanian Legislation

1. Order no. 1105/2016 of the President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration, amending Order no. 3769/2015 of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration concerning the declaration of the deliveries/services and the acquisitions carried out on the national territory by the persons registered for VAT purposes and the approval of the model and the content of the informative declaration concerning the deliveries/services and acquisitions carried out on the national territory by the persons registered for VAT purposes, was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 242 of 1 April.

• The above-mentioned normative deed amends Form no. 394 and eliminates the obligation to retroactively submit the Form. The amendments shall apply starting with 1 July 2016.
• One of the amendments introduced in the Form concerns the fact that the insertion of the Personal Identification Code of the supplier/beneficiary as physical entity is mandatory only if the person subject to taxation collects the Personal Identification Code from invoices or certain agreements.

2. Law no. 51/2016, approving Government Decision no. 37/2015 on amendment of several normative deeds in the consumer protection field was published in the Official Gazette, part I, no. 257 of 6 April.

• The traders sanctioned by the authorities for unfair commercial practices may be obliged to refund the amounts of money for products and services to the consumers, within maximum 15 days as of communication of the offence notice.
• Commercial practices are regarded as unfair when they are contrary to professional diligence requirements and alter or may alter consumers’ economical behaviour.
• Unfair commercial practices are divided in deceitful and aggressive practices and the fines provided by law are individualized depending upon the number of employee of the company and the annual net turnover.

3. Order no. 1110/2016 of the President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration, on amending and supplementing Order no. 3622/2015 of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration on approving the template and content of the forms used for administration of income tax and social contributions owed by natural persons, was published in the Official Gazette, part I, no. 257, of 6 April.

• The above mentioned normative deed updates form no. 256, e. “Ex officio notice of assessment regarding natural persons’ income”, the innovative aspect being the fact that formulated challenge may be filed within 45 days as of communication, instead of 30 days, such as previously provided.
• At the same time, the same normative deed brings under regulation a new fiscal form, more precisely form no. 257, “Decision on cancelation of ex officio notice of assessment regarding natural persons’ income”, hence the new fiscal form being used to cancel the ex officio notice of assessment regarding tax on yearly income/earnings of natural persons.

4. Resolution no. 1 dated 15 February 2016 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, regarding the panel holding competence to settle the second appeal to the interest of the law, was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 258 of 6 April

• According to the above indicated resolution, the insurer for civil liability of car owners is liable as civil party in a lawsuit, being obliged bear on its own all car accident damages resulting from any offence, according to the law and the vehicle insurance contract.

5. Joint order no. 682/1154/2016of the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests and of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration on approval of the Procedure for reimbursement of the amounts of money provided by art. 7, 9 and 12 of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 9/2013 regarding environment duty for vehicles, as well as of the amounts of money established by definitive decisions of the courts of law, and on approval of the template and content of certain forms, was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no 274 of 12 April 2016. By the procedure which the present normative deed introduces, in view of reimbursement of the former vehicle tax (updated with the consumption prices index) and of related interests (calculated up to full payment thereof), the tax payers must submit with the competent tax authorities an application and several justifying documents .

• The above mentioned application may only be submitted until the end of 2020 with the tax authorities where the entities and natural persons which independently carry out economical activities or exercise liberal professions are registered as taxpayers or with the fiscal authorities in the territorial jurisdiction of which the natural persons have their residence;
• According to the normative deeds in force, the former vehicle tax shall be reimbursed in instalments over a period of 5 calendar years, by means of annual payments amounting to 20% of the owed amount.

6. Order no. 1164/2016 of the President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration on amending the Procedure for publication of the list of debtors holding outstanding fiscal obligations, as well as the amount of such obligations, approved by Order no. 558/2016 of the President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration, was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 274 of 12 April 2016.

• By the present normative deed, the National Agency for Fiscal Administration raised the applicable threshold, with the purpose of including natural and legal entities on the lists of debtors to the state budget;
• The minimum threshold for including natural entities is set by the present order to the amount of RON 1,500, as compared to the initially set value of RON 100, and in respect of legal entities, the threshold is of RON 50,000 for taxpayers falling within the medium taxpayers category and of RON 100,000 RON for major taxpayers.

7. Order 1155/2016 of the President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration on issuing, by means of the massive printing centre, of certain fiscal and procedural administrative documents, was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 274 of 12 April 2016.

• The above mentioned normative deed updated the list of fiscal administrative documents which are valid even if are not signed or stamped by the issuer, therefore a number of 29 documents was recorded, as compared to the 26 previously established;
• The new regulation replaced the decision regarding ancillary payment obligations with 2 new documents, one regarding ancillary fiscal obligations representing interest and delay penalties, and the other regarding ancillary fiscal obligations representing penalties for the failure to declare.
• The new normative deed also introduced in the list of documents valid without signature and stamp certain documents which the legislation had not provided so far: the notice on setting up a garnishment over liquid assets for secondary offices, the notice on acknowledgement regarding the setting up of the garnishment or the notice on inconsistencies between the documents provided and the fiscal records.

8. Order no. 450/2016 of the Ministry of Public Finance on approval of the Procedure for correcting the errors included in the annual financial statements and the annual accounting reporting submitted by economic operators and non-profit legal entities was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 274 of 12 April 2016.

• The new normative deed is intended for correcting the errors in the annual financial statements/accounting reporting ascertained further to the submission thereof, as at the moment of submission certain errors may be ascertained, due to erroneous filling in of: name of reporting entity, NACE activity (name of NACE class and/or NACE code), form of property, name of employees and/or of other indicators reported by means of the form “Informative Data”
• The above mentioned normative deed sets a maximum term for filing the annual financial statements/accounting reporting which include corrected information, so that the end of the financial exercise/year following the one to which the annual financial statements/accounting reporting in respect of which certain errors were reported refers to represents the maximum term for submission.

9. Order no. 162/2016 of the President of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration on approving the Charter of rights and obligations of the natural entity subject to verification of personal fiscal situation was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 292 of 18 April 2016.

• As a general note, the above mentioned normative deed brings under regulation the rights and obligations which a natural entity is bound to for the duration of the fiscal verification;
• A novelty element, also present in the new Fiscal Procedure Code, is the filling in, upon the request of the fiscal authorities, of a declaration on assets and income and, moreover, mention is also made of the obligation of the taxpayer to cooperate and provide information so that the related authorities may be able to determine the fiscal state of facts.

10. Government Decision 234/2016 on amending and supplementing Government Decision no. 332/2014 on setting up a state aid chart, in view of supporting investment which promotes regional development by creating job availabilities, was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 296 of 19 April 2016.

• The present normative deed implements certain amendments to the legal framework by means of which certain benefits are granted to investors which promote regional development by creating job availabilities;
• To be precise, the duration of the session for registration of applications for granting the financing was reduced and the inclusion of certain companies which may enjoy the above mentioned benefits was allowed;
• Within a general framework, the state shall undertake to bear part of the expenses with employees in case of companies which, within a maximum term of 3 years as of completion of investment, create at least 10 new job vacancies, out of which at least 3 vacancies for underprivileged persons;

11. Law no. 77/2016 on discharge of mortgage-backed debts through transfer of title over immovable property was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 330 of 28 April 2016.

• The normative deed under question confers a natural entity holding a mortgage-backed debt the possibility to extinguish such by transferring the right of ownership over the mortgaged real estate to the bank;
• The subjects of the present law are:

1. the consumers;
2. the credit institutions, the non-banking financial institutions or the assignees of the receivables held over the consumers;

• Eliminating from the scope of law the mortgage-backed loans granted by means of the “First Home” program, as well as the maximum threshold of EUR 250,000 for loans represent 2 of the conditions expressly provided, depending upon which the present law may or may not be applied.