The Save Romania Union (USR) is calling on parliamentary political parties to commit to a pact for sponsoring sports, so that the relevant legislative package lodged by this formation is quickly adopted at the beginning of the parliamentary session in September.

„USR has already submitted to Parliament a law package to encourage the construction and equipping of sports facilities and also to support sports clubs by redirecting the corporate profit tax, as well as individuals’ income tax. The USR is calling on the parliamentary parties to accept a sports pact and to quickly adopt this package at the beginning of the September parliamentary session,” the USR said in a statement on Tuesday.

The package consists of six bills that provide for: VAT exemption for the construction and equipment of sports compounds, 5 percent VAT for the economic activities of sports clubs, sponsorship for sports clubs by deducting up to 40 percent of the corporate profit tax and the redirecting of up to 5 percent of the individuals’ income tax if the funds go into sports infrastructure or children and junior sports activities, tax exemption for sports competitions that take place on public roads, competition-grade top-quality sport facilities built with public money, the cited source states.

USR deputy Tudor Pop who chairs the Youth and Sports Committee stated that such a pact for Romanian sports has always been on the table, but funding and political will of „past or current prime ministers” have been lacking.

According to USR, other arguments that speak in favor of this legislative initiative are: the underfunding of sports, the need to combat sedentarism at a time when only 20 percent of Romanians are doing physical exercises or practice a sport regularly, well below the EU average of 40 percent. „It is outrageous that the authorities turn their attention to sports only every 4 years, when it comes to Olympic medals,” the USR also said.

AGERPRES