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New facilities regarding the payment of the fiscal obligations

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The 181/2020 Government Emergency Ordinance published on 26^th of October, 2020 in the Official Gazette number 988, introduced a series of measures necessary for the improvement of the liquidity of the taxpayers, in the context of the actual economic environment. The main measures adopted through the emergency ordinance are:

Postponement of some deadlines which expired at 25.10.2020

• There are no interests and penalties for the late payment of fiscal taxes due after 21^st of March, 2020 and outstanding until 25^th of December, 2020. The tax obligations are not considered as outstanding.
• By way of derogation from the Fiscal Procedure Code, with some exceptions, the VAT requested for reimbursement through the VAT Returns, submitted within the legal deadlines, until 25^th of January, 2021, inclusively (previously, the term was 25^th of October, 2020), it is refunded by the central fiscal authority with the inspection taking place afterwards.
• For the late payment of the principals from the payment schedules, unpaid until 25^th of December, 2020, inclusively (previously, the term was 25^th of October 2020), there are no interests or penalties calculated. The conditions to maintain the validity of the payment schedule are suspended until 25^th of December, 2020.
• The prescription terms of the fiscal authority right to set tax receivables and to ask for enforcement, as well as the right of the taxpayers to ask for refunds of the tax receivables, provided by the Fiscal Procedure Code, are suspended or do not start until 25^th December, 2020.

A new type of payment rescheduling

For the taxpayers facing financial problems related to the debt settlement, it was introduced the possibility to ask for a special payment rescheduling, for which it is not requested a financial guarantee. The main aspects that need to be taking into account are:

• the rescheduling is approved for a period of maximum 12 months and it refers to the principal obligations and the accessories, having the deadline after the date of the beginning of the emergency state (16^th of March) and outstanding at the moment of the issuance of the fiscal certificate;
• it is not applicable for the fiscal obligations totalizing less than 500 RON for the natural persons and 5.000 RON for the legal entities;
• in order to benefit from the rescheduling, there has to be submitted an application to the fiscal authority, until 15^th of December, 2020 (inclusively), under the penalty of forfeiture;
• the fiscal authority has to solve the request in 5 working days from the submission date, being approved through a rescheduling decision or rejected;
• the amounts and the payment terms for the rescheduled installments are established through the rescheduling charts which are part of the rescheduling decision for payment. At the request of the debtor, the fiscal authority may approve the differentiated payment of the installments;
• to benefit from the payment rescheduling, the debtor must cumulatively meet the following conditions:
  • not being under bankruptcy proceedings;
  • not being during a dissolution process;
  • not registering outstanding fiscal debts at the date of declaring the state of emergency and not paid until the date of the issuance of the tax clearance certificate;
  • not having liabilities established according to the legislation regarding insolvency;
  • having all the fiscal declarations submitted up to date.
• during the availability of the payment rescheduling, the initial decision can be modified, maximum twice, at the request of the taxpayer, by including in the rescheduling of any other fiscal obligations;
• for the period for which there was approved the rescheduling of the payments, starting with 26^th December 2020, for the tax obligations rescheduled, there are due and calculated interests at the level of 0.01% for each day of delay;
• if the installment is overdue, a penalty of 5% is calculated. The same penalty is owed even if the right for payment rescheduling is lost, for the outstanding installments;
• for the amounts approved as rescheduled, the enforcement procedure is suspended or is not starting from the date of communication of the payment rescheduling decision;
• the debtors who at the date of the submission of the request for payment rescheduling have in progress payment rescheduling granted according to the Fiscal Procedure Code may benefit from the payment facilities according to the G.E.O;
• the payment rescheduling procedure needs to have the approval of the President of the N.A.F.A. within 15 days from the date of entry into force of this G.E.O.

Therefore, the main advantages of this payment rescheduling are related to the fact that the rescheduling could be obtained for a maximum period of 12 months, without the need to provide financial guarantees, and for the rescheduled amounts the interests are reduced by half (0.01% per day, instead of 0.02% per day) and no delayed payment penalties are due.

Specific tax exemption for various activities (hotels, boarding houses and other accommodation facilities, restaurants, bars, catering)

• taxpayers obliged to pay the specific tax for certain activities, according to the Law no. 70/2016, in 2020, do not owe specific tax for the period between the date of this emergency ordinance, 26^th of October, 2020 and 31^st of December, 2020 inclusively;
• the taxpayers will recalculate the specific tax for 2020 by dividing the tax by 365 days and multiplying the result with the number of days obtained by reducing from 365 days the number of days for the period provided above (October, 26 – December, 31) and the number of 90 calendar days provided at art. I of the G.E.O. no. 99/2020; the taxpayers who fall under the provisions of art. IX of the O.U.G. no. 48/2020 regarding some financial-fiscal measures, have to decrease also the period in which they interrupted totally or partially the activity, as a result of the state of emergency;
• if a statement has been already submitted regarding the first semester of 2020 by the date this emergency ordinance entered into force, the taxpayers will submit an rectifying statement in order to benefit from the facility introduced by this GEO.

Building tax reduction

• For the year 2020, the local councils can issue decisions until December 2, 2020 regarding the reduction of the building tax with a percentage up to 50%, for non-residential buildings, if during the state of emergency and / or alert period, the owners or the users of the buildings were obliged, according to the law, to totally interrupt their economic activity or hold the certificate for emergency situations issued by the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment which certifies the partial interruption of the economic activity.
• The reduction for rented buildings applies only if the owner renounced at the collection of 50% of the rent during the emergency and / or alert period and if at least 50% of the rented area was not used due to the fact that the activities were suspended by law in this period.

Extension of the terms for the restructuring of budgetary obligations request

• The interested taxpayers will have the opportunity to submit the notification for the restructuring of the budgetary obligations (GO 6/2019) also between 1^st of November, 2020 – 31^st of March, 2021 (the previous term had expired on 30 of September, 2020), following that the restructuring request to be submitted until 30 of June, 2021 (the previous deadline was 31^st of December, 2020).

As a reminder, the legal entities of public or private law can benefit from the restructuring of budgetary obligations, except the public institutions and the administrative-territorial units, if they struggle with financial problems and for which there is a risk of insolvency.

The restructuring can be requested for the main budgetary obligations outstanding at 31^st of July, 2020 and unpaid, as well as for the accessories.

In order to benefit from this facility, the taxpayers must notify the competent fiscal authority by 31^st of March, 2021 at the latest, a term which is under the sanction of forfeiture.

In order to benefit from the restructuring of the budgetary obligations, the debtor must meet cumulatively the following conditions:

• not to be eligible to benefit from the payment rescheduling;
• to present a restructuring plan and a test of the prudent private creditor, drawn up by an independent expert;
• not to be under insolvency proceedings;
• not to have been dissolved;
• to have all tax returns submitted;
• to fulfill the test of the prudent private creditor.

Debt restructuring also includes the possibility of cancellation of a part from the main debt, based on the reorganization plan. Therefore, up to 50% of the principal debit can be cancelled, with the condition that a percentage of the debit is paid, as follows:

• a percentage of 5% of the main debit, if the cancellation of up to 30% of the budgetary obligations is requested;
• a percentage of 10% of the main debit, if the cancellation of the budgetary obligations between 30% and 40% of the total is requested;
• a percentage of 15% of the main debit, if the cancellation of the budgetary obligations between 40% and 50% of the total is requested.

The deductibility of the expenses related to Covid19 – Testing

The expenses registered by the legal entities or Authorized Individuals, regarding the voluntary testing of the employees in order to detect the coronavirus, will be completely deductible and also will be exempted from paying contributions and taxes, that otherwise, would have been recorded as salary benefits.