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Fuel consumption will continue to decline in Romania, and Romanian hauliers will increasingly buy cheaper fuel from neighboring countries, say carriers association Union of Transporters of Romania (UNTRR).
“Neighboring states and merchants are organized better to take additional volumes in 2015. Additional excise duty clawback system does not work in Romania – no road transport did recover even a cent for fuel supplied to the country this year. Solution: make a real functional system in Romania”, UNTRR said in a statement.
Additional excise duty refund system is not working
While in force since June 2014, the additional excise duty clawback system is not working – no road transport did recover even a cent for fuel supplied to Romania this year. By comparison, companies that supplied fuel in Hungary and Austria – have already recovered VAT (both countries) and excise (Hungary) for April / May / June since September 2014, UNTRR officials say.
“Given this situation, UNTRR continues to warn the Romanian government that maintaining this dysfunctional system has negative effects for the Romanian hauliers chain – consumers and passengers and also for the Romanian State, while consumption continued migration to other countries, creating difficulties in activities and reducing the volume of fuel sold in Romania constantly…and disadvantage Romanian state in the competition with other states,” the release reads.
Romanian hauliers from the border areas, even if they are not involved with international transport –get fuel outside Romania and then consume it in the country, while the Romanian companies that make international transports increase tanks volumes fueled from other countries, such as Austria or Hungary, officials say.
Thus, the steady reduction in the volume of fuel consumed in Romania will result in reduction of amounts received directly to the state budget from the excise duty.
This will lead to “the emergence of artificial inventions needed to compensate for these losses – for example, the exchange rate of the euro / leu to calculate excise duty”, say carriers.
In this situation, all parties lose, and there is a lead of disadvantage for “Romanian state in competition with other EU and non-EU countries like Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, etc – competition where the authorities of each state try to protect their domestic interests obtaining benefits for businesses that they represent, thereby contributing to national economic growth. ”
What carriers demand
UNTRR requires the Romanian state to take all measures necessary to ensure at least equal treatment of Romanian road transport operators among themselves and with those of other states.
“Please note that the normative documents recently published [1] on the amendment and completion of the procedure for refund of excise duty on diesel used in road transport is a step forward, but does not eliminate anti-competitive and discriminatory provisions reported by our association, with negative impact on the functioning road transport market in Romania. All issues raised by our association Romanian authorities on the subject, can be found on http://www.untrr.ro/interventii-untrr-la-autoritati.html “, reads the release.
“Given the negative results obtained so far from a good concept implemented in a poor manner, we ask the Romanian Government to urgently undertake all necessary corrections to ensure real practical application of the procedure for refund of additional duty to carriers, through a fair system that is made to work for a win-win situation for all stakeholders – consumers / passengers, carriers, state,” officials say.
The National Union of Road Hauliers from Romania UNTRR is a professional and governmental employers organization representing more than 13,000 members – operators conducting domestic and international transport of goods and people.
[1] Decision no. 906 of 15 October 2014 amending and supplementing Government Decision no. 537/2014; Order no. 1449 of 27 October 2014 approving the Procedure for payment of amounts due according to decisions approving applications for refund of excise duty, issued under Government Decision no. 537/2014
