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Tolosa (IMF): Tax payers should be treated with respect to increase voluntary conformity
Romania has made progress in recent years for the voluntary conformity for tax paying, but there is still much to be done in that respect. The mail pillar should be educating tax payers and improving the quality of services offered to them, said Guillermo Tolosa, the IMF representative in Romania and Bulgaria on Thursday. “Citizens must see that the money from taxes is spent efficiently in order to pay their obligations to the IRS. An attentive monitoring of expenses is essential to set up this perception,” Tolosa pointed out.
In his opinion, society must get the perception that it is worth paying taxes and that perception should be backed by equal treatment for all, so that every person should get convinced that competitors pay the same taxes. “You must feel that the administration treats you with respect, integrity and honesty. It is very important to create this conformity culture,” Tolosa added.
The IMF representative says that in Romania, voluntary conformity principles are hard to implement when many businessmen constantly avoid paying taxes.
“41% of companies in Romania report losses every year,” Tolosa said, which shows that wither many businessmen are bad managers or they have a strategic approach and avoid paying taxes.
The IMF representative said that in the context in which fiscal administration resources are limited and some of them must be directed to the control of other companies.
Tolosa also showed that employees from ANAF, the Big Contributors Department, spend a third of their work time answering requests coming from the Court of Accounts, many of them being about cases of very small amounts. “These efforts distract the attention of the fiscal administration from the big problem generated by the fact that about half of companies in Romania do not pay tax on profit because they report losses,”the IMF representative added.
Another deficiency in fiscal administration is VAT return. The IMF official mentioned the fact that in other countries, it takes one day to check a file on VAT return while in Romania it takes 6 months.