The law on overtaxing revenues hits hard honest energy producers as well, although it has been issued in a hope to penalize the “smart guys”, say Patres officials, an association which brings together mainly independent renewable energy producers with local capital.
They argue that taxation on income, not profit, affects the balance sheet of producers, who often have to buy expensive energy to honor their contracts, as wind and solar energy cannot be produced in constant flux (baseload). Then, the costs of imbalances (on the balancing market) must also be taken into account.
In addition, the issue of lack of application norms of the Law 259 has arisen in the market.
“ANAF should have published the application norms within 15 days from the entry into force of the law, but 45 days have passed and nothing has happened. Tax returns should be filed, but no one knows what to do, as there are no norms,” they said.
At the same time, the state’s intervention in the market led to the disappearance of real competition.
“Any intervention will only lead to the collapse of the market concept. We go back to the pre-liberalization period. It is a crisis situation, we are not the only state in this position. However, even if it was necessary to intervene, and the intentions were good, not thinking about the problem, in detail, you end up generating a much more serious problem.”
Patres officials say that the law did not lead to a reduction in the market price, as intended, the price of energy rising from 900 lei/MWh at the moment of conceiving the law, to 1,500 lei/ MWh at present.
“Producers will have problems, they will cut their output and the result will be contrary to the spirit of the initial initiative. Many producers will have to close facilities. The problem is that we do not have enough production capacity, or, the state strikes exactly the producers,” they also said.
