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The energy industry will be hardest hit by the on tax special constructions of 1,5%, the so- called “pole tax”, and just five days before the first collection scheduled for 26 May 2014 its implementation rules are still not in force. Government approved Tuesday, May 20, some clarifications on its tax base, but the statements of the Prime Minister Victor Ponta show that the tax could be further modified. “Special construction tax raises a lot of issues, investors need to secure additional funds because they do not know how this tax will be calculated. That throws into uncertainty the budgets of many companies,” told energynomics.ro a tax expert.
“Romania is a country where legislative uncertainty combines with high levels of bureaucracy and corruption. That deeply affects current and future investments,” said the source.
Subject to change
In addition, the special constructions tax could be further modified, according to Prime Minister Victor Ponta.”Definitely yes. The tax on special construction… in fact represented the termination of an exemption on industrial buildings. Was not the intention when was proposed last year by the Minister of Finance, it was not the intention to include the agriculture. And now, after the 25th (of May) after the reports are done, we’ll see exactly what impact and what area of agriculture we can shield in the future. From my point of view, this we will do,” said Ponta, quoted by Agerpres.
He added that the government “had estimated a revenue impact of about 400 million lei and collection will certainly be much higher.”The draft on implementing rules was published just a week ago. Without a proper study on the financial impact and the basis and method of calculation, the charge could suffer a delay.
According to estimates of the energy industry, the pole tax could squeeze companies of over 1.5 to 2 billion lei annually.
