Thousands of Romanian Companies Investigated by Fiscal Authority for Less than EUR 20 Debt

Romanian Fiscal Authority is desperate to find more sources to finance the budget. With a growing deficit and an ever-increasing foreign debt Romania faces severe financial troubles ahead.

One of the sources of income for the state budget is to execute the Romanian companies for their debts. This is where the desperation of the authorities shows: thousands of Romanian companies are criminally investigated for less than EUR 20 debt to the budget.

The General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police (IGPR) has received from the Romanian Fiscal Administration a list of about 53,000 corporate taxpayers to be investigated for tax evasion crimes.

The funny part of this context, more precisely of this list of debts to the state, is that the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) asked for companies with debt lower than EUR 20 to be criminally investigated. In contrast, the number of companies asking for closure in Romania has reached a new record. Does this initiative encourage other entrepreneurs to invest their money in Romania? We think it doesn’t.

Of course, all the debts should be paid, but investigating companies for EUR 20 debt is counter-productive. Apart from the money spent by the state institutions to collect that debt, there is also a problem with the image the Romanian state projects. That image spells desperation in a very complicated economic situation.

Tough times come ahead, but the image projected by the Romanian authorities is not something foreign investors would appreciate. Recently, statistics on foreign investments in the country showed that the largest foreign investors in Romania are the millions of workers abroad who send money to their families. Foreign direct investments are exceeded by personal remittances from abroad, which tells everything about the economic strategy of the Romanian Government.