- Title: Romania's parliament approves law to scrap 102 taxes from 2017
- Date: 29th December 2016
- Summary: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (DECEMBER 29, 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PARLIAMENT BUILDING
- Embargoed: 13th January 2017 12:35
- Keywords: Romania taxes
- Location: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
- City: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
- Country: Romania
- Topics: Budget/Taxation/Revenue,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0015EXR9YX
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: PICTURE AND AUDIO QUALITY AS INCOMING
Romania's new parliament this week overwhelmingly approved a law scrapping 102 small taxes without changes, after the president sent the legislation back to parliament for reconsideration.
The Social Democrats (PSD), winners of a Dec. 11 national election, sponsored the law, saying it would ease the tax burden and reduce red tape in the European Union's second-poorest country.
"Millions of Romanians cannot be humiliated any more by standing in queues, paying useless taxes, taxes which are collected and after that are kept in the banks. This is an important step to fulfil our programme to reduce bureaucracy," said Liviu Dragnea, leader of the party, after the vote.
President Klaus Iohannis and other opponents said it had been drawn up without an impact assessment or provisions for how it would be financed. Earlier this month, the Constitutional Court rejected his contention that the law was unconstitutional.
In Romania, a president has the power to return already-passed legislation to parliament, but only once. If lawmakers refuse to change it, the head of state is then obliged to sign the measure into law.
The PSD and their junior ally ALDE command a comfortable outright majority in the new legislature.
Their election victory has heightened uncertainty over Romania's ability to keep its budget deficit below the EU's ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product, as their governing programme includes ambitious spending plans.
The law eliminates a slew of small taxes from next year, such as levies for the commerce registry, for copies of fiscal records, for temporary passports, for fishing and for car registration.
It also does away with license fees for public television and radio, which are supposed to be independent of politics.
"This measure is part of a tendency to eliminate or reduce taxes and increase salaries and pensions in the public sector, which may pose difficulties to meet the budget deficit target," Ciprian Dascalu, economist at ING Bank, said.
The law's annual cost to the budget is estimated at 1.6 billion lei ($366.71 million). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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