The Cabinet approved amendments to the Law on the Entrepreneur’s Patent, suggesting that the patent holders should carry out independent activities. These activities will be registered by a notification to the mayor’s office or the local office of the State Tax Service, based on an application. The cap on revenues will be doubled from 300,000 lei to 600,000 lei a year. The sales tax will be 1%, but not less than 3,000 lei a year. Those who will perform independent activities will be exempted from paying local taxes, such as the tax for laying out the territory, the tax for commercial units/service provision, IPN reports.

According to the authors of the bill, the entrepreneur’s patent was instituted in 1998 with the aim of supporting private individuals to start own businesses so that these later developed the business under different legal and organizational forms, such as individual enterprise or limited liability company. International practice shows that such regulations are no longer used. The European system of small business regulation and stimulation provides for a series of rights and obligations designed to strengthen competition and include the entrepreneurs from this segment into the economic circuit based on general principles, without distorting state revenues.

The bill stipulates that the entrepreneurs performing independent activities will have the right to import and to trade retail and wholesale. The use of cash register will be mandatory, but its price will be deduced from the tax that is to be paid. The entrepreneurs will present only one report, in a simplified form, at yearend.

The given taxation regime will be included in the draft fiscal and customs policy for 2017. The switchover from patent-based trade to the new taxation regime for individual entrepreneurs will enable to pursue a fair policy in relation to market operators trough the angle of consumer rights.

The patent-based entrepreneurial activities will be banned starting with 2017.