The Ministry of Finance does not support the idea of providing tax concessions for the farmers affected by this year’s severe drought. Minister Dumitru Budianschi said the offering of tax concessions to framers is not a solution as the state budget does not have other revenues than the collected taxes. The executive’s policy is to support business entities by programs aimed at ensuring the development of businesses, not by tax concessions that endanger the sustainability of the budget, IPN reports.
Recently, by a joint letter penned by the National Farmers’ Federation, the Association “Force of Farmers” and “Moldova-Fruct”, the farmer demanded to defer their payments to creditors without calculating penalties, to provide tax concessions and to attract foreign resources for compensating farmers for the losses caused by drought.
“We are analyzing a set of measures for the farmers who suffered as a result of the drought and these will be made public soon. We pursue a policy to cover the losses by supporting the farmers and businesses in general, by support programs. When it goes to tax concessions, the support is not so targeted and we lose budget revenues. This way, the budget loses the capacity to finance agriculture, including through the Agriculture Intervention Fund and subsidization programs,” Dumitru Budianschi stated in the program “Résumé” on RliveTV channel.
According to the minister, everyone should pay taxes to the state in accordance with the law. “We have the same interests as the farmers when they experience problems, when calamities occur. We plan support programs for them. We also support and encourage the famers to insure themselves, but the general tendency is to support the farmers in a targeted way and less to apply the practice of tax concessions. We do not have other sources of incomes except the taxes paid by the citizens. We can offer back to society the same amount we collect from businesses, from the citizens. In the current exceptional situation, the farmers can be helped by targeted methods that are efficient for them,” said the official.
According to farmers’ associations, the severe drought this year compromised 80-90% of the corn harvest and 60-70% of the sunflower and sugar beet harvests. The small and medium-sized farmers will be unable to cope if they are not helped by the state. They risk going bankrupt and tens of thousands of jobs will be lost as a result.
