PanamaPapers: Romania’s Parliament raises question of tax evasion risk in offshore scandal

The Parliament will ask the heads of Romania’s tax authority ANAF and the anti-money laundering office ONPCSB to offer some explanations as the #PanamaPapers scandal unfolds across the globe, business-review.eu reads.

The head of the committee for budget, finance and banks at the Chamber of Deputies, Gheorghe Ialomitianu, said there will be a hearing next week where the representatives from ANAF and ONPCSB will have to outline the situation of offshore firms in Panama and the transactions that have been carried out in such accounts from Romania.

“One person that has opened a firm in Panama said it had done it to pay less in taxes. The problem is of transparency, because it is possible that many of the transactions carried out through Panama may not have been reported in Romania, which means ANAF did not get its tax cut. Any activity taking place in Romania has to be taxed here, not in Panama. The creation of offshores is legal, but you have to carry out your activity in that country, not in Romania, and the recording of revenues to be done in the tax heaven, because any activity taking place in Romania has to be taxed here. This is the Romanian law and the European legislation says the same thing, so the taxation of profits has to be done in the country where you get it, not where you own the firm”, said Ialomitianu.

The MP added that authorities need to find the trail of these money and see if we have a case of illegal transfers from Romania, which would also involve tax evasion allegations.

The ANAF, which is currently headed by Dragos Doros, said it had created a special team of tax inspectors to see if certain companies or individuals have links to the Panama Files scandal.

Over 100 Romanian names appear in the documents leaked from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, according to journalists at Rise Project.

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