The American Chamber of Commerce in Romania (AmCham Romania) welcomes the rewriting of the Fiscal Code and the Fiscal Procedural Code, two legislative frameworks of major importance for the long term competitiveness of the Romanian economy, and their entry into force starting with January 1st, 2016, while also signaling the need to focus in the following period on formulating and finalizing the secondary and tertiary legislation.

The uniform and unbiased implementation of the legal provisions is a priority for the business environment represented by AmCham, which is why during the next months we will be following closely the completion of the methodological norms of the Fiscal Code and the orders given by the ANAF President.

Thus, in line with previous expressed positions, AmCham Romania calls on the competent authorities to align the legislative framework to the business environment recommendations, with a special focus on the Fiscal Procedural Code.

Another urgent priority is continuing the modernization of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (NAFA) started with the support of the World Bank and establishing a balance between taxpayers’ rights and obligations, on the one hand, and tax authorities on the other hand, through a greater transparency of NAFA’s procedures and activities.

Ionut Simion, Chairman of the AmCham Romania Taxation Committee notes: "The new Codes expected to enter into force next year will provide transparency, stability and predictability, key elements of the investment climate, therefore the success of this important step is closely linked to how the secondary and tertiary legislation is being formulated and finalized in view of Romania’s competitive positioning on the investors’ map."

AmCham remains a strong supporter of the tax evasion fight, however, we note with concern that over the past years the number of criminal cases drawn from investigations and tax audits has increased considerably. We believe that tax auditors should address with utmost responsibility the situations encountered in the fiscal controls so that the tax disputes to be transferred in the field of criminal law only after careful and appropriate consideration.