The Government plans to cancel tax exemptions enjoyed by the gambling business and public-private partnerships, and annul tax-exempt meal vouchers, among other fiscal measures designed to balance the State Budget.

Deficit-wise, one problem highlighted by Finance Minister Natalia Gavriliţa, at a press conference today, was the adoption of the Law Salary at the end of last year without an accurate estimate of the number of budget sector employees. Gavriliţa says this has resulted in 1 billion lei in extra spending over what was originally planned.

Besides limiting tax-exempt sales in duty-free outlets, a measure already endorsed by Parliament in the first reading, Natalia Gavriliţa enumerated other fiscal measures aimed at reducing the budget deficit and increasing revenues for paying salaries: tax exemptions will be cancelled for fuels marketed in customs areas, and some tax amnesty measures will be annulled as well.

Further, the Ministry of Finance plans to backtrack on the 10% reduced VAT rate for the hospitality industry, and increase the excise tax on fine-cut tobacco. The construction of a new prison on Chisinau’s outskirts and the implementation of the project “Reform in Education” will be postponed until 2020.

Additionally, there are some measures which Natalia Gavriliţa says are designed to “restore social justice”, such as higher taxes on environmental pollution and a larger taxable amount for the tax on capital gains, or the cancellation of personal tax exemptions for annual earnings of 360,000 lei and higher.