Parliament voted the amendments to the Law on Civil Society Organizations, the so-called 2% Law that enables private individuals to direct 2% of the income tax to nongovernmental or religious organizations, in the second, final reading on July 21, IPN reports.
The changes authorize the Government to decide the way in which the amounts intended for beneficiaries will be calculated, retained or transferred and how the use of these sums will be monitored. The bill defines the purpose of the money. The public associations can use these sums only for supporting education, science, culture, sport, health and social protection, while the religious organizations only for social, moral, cultural or charity activities.
A control mechanism is instituted by which the public associations and religious entities that benefitted from such allocations will present reports on the use of this money. The organizations will be obliged to refund the misused sums or the sums whose utilization wasn’t reported. In such a case, the public associations and religious entities will not get such allocations during two years.
The Law on Civil Society Organizations was adopted in July 2014.
