Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has announced that next Monday he will have a meeting with business executives on possible fiscal measures in 2025, as well as a technical discussion on the collection of arrears, currently amounting to RON 175 billion.

„I don’t think we will come up with tax increase measures, as we did not come in 2024. I believe that through organisation and more honesty and through digital transformation and closing the sometimes-legal fiscal optimisation loopholes we can overcome this moment without making major changes,” Ciolacu told a news conference in Brussels.

He added that the measures to be taken into account for the recovery of arrears should not be aimed primarily at putting people in jail.

„It is not possible to have fair people, who pay their taxes, and people who always find loopholes to not pay taxes and to evade taxes. I want to tell you, in the United States of America, the Tax Office is the strongest. If an Americans are afraid of something, they are afraid of the tax authorities. We can’t live like that anymore. We cannot make some pay and others not pay. I cannot ask to come up with new taxes as long as I have arrears of almost 8% of GDP to collect. I cannot ask to come up with new taxes as long as tax evasion is 10% of GDP. I cannot ask to come up with new taxes when I have the largest VAT gap.”

According to Ciolacu, in the medium term in Romania, a tax reform has to be Carried out along with sorting out payments.

AGERPRES