The representatives of a number of nongovernmental organizations call on the authorities to withdraw the legislative initiative on capital and tax amnesty and the related bill that were passed by Parliament in the first reading.
In a news conference at IPN, Nadejda Hriptievski, programs director at the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, said that if the two bills are adopted in the final reading, civil society will ask the Head of State to make use of his veto and not to promulgate them. If the President also ignores this appeal, the NGOs will ask the development partners to freeze the financing for Moldova.
Nadejda Hriptievski said that four experienced Romanian organizations transmitted a petition to the President, Parliament and the Government of Romania whereby they ask to rethink or even suspend the budget support loan for Moldova if the Moldovan Parliament passes the bill on tax amnesty in the second reading. The petition was signed by Expert Forum (EFOR), the Romanian Center for European Policies (CRPE), Freedom House-Romania and the Group for Social Dialogue (GDS).
Executive director of the Institute for European Politics and Reforms Iulian Groza said Moldova depends a lot on the contributions that every European citizen makes through the assistance that the country is to obtain. “The simplest solution for the government now is to abandon the hasty discussion on the bill this week as we understand that this is the last week when the bill will be debated and we hope that the official opinion of the development partners will be presented this week and the authorities will be encouraged to suspend any discussion on this initiative,” he stated.
In the same news conference, “Expert-Grup” executive director Adrian Lupusor said the bill adopted in the first reading implies big risks of expansion of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. The proposed capital amnesty can lead to the legalization of previous acts of corruption and maintaining in posits of corrupt functionaries. This runs counter to the objectives of the fight against corruption as the competent institutions will be unable to check the origin of declared assets.
The bill on the liberalization of capital and tax stimulation and the bill related to this, by which the relevant legal acts are amended, provide that the people will be able to liberalize the capitals kept in the underground economy and outside the system. The calculated fines and penalties will be annulled if the business entities pay the main debt to the state.
