Future governments might denounce capital amnesty - expert

In the future, any other government might invoke the anti-constitutional character of the decision to amnesty the capital and annul its consequences, Valeriu Prohnitchi, director executive of “Expert Group” Analytic Centre, said at a press conference held today. According to Prohnitchi, the decision on capital amnesty could have very serious legislative and constitutional consequences in the future, because the justice is on the side of those who have honestly accumulated their wealth. The fundamental problem in what concerns the capital amnesty, according to the expert, is the trust of the economic entities in the present government. “Why should those who worked in legal conditions trust the good intentions of the Government, which obviously disfavours them in comparison to the companies which have illegally accumulated their capital?”, Prohnitchi says. The argument that other countries have done the same thing is also not seen positively, as “we should use the best experiences, not the worst ones”. In this respect, the expert gave the example of the capital amnesty procedure operated in Kazakhstan, where the legalisation of the capital brought only USD 500 mln, a laughable sum for the economy of this country. Referring to the economic consequences of this initiative, Prohnitchi mentioned that the massive legalisation of the capital, although incredible for Moldova, will raise the exchange rate of the national currency. However, it will disfavour the exporters and will favour the importers and consumption, which will deepen the inflationist processes, the expert said. Economic expert Alexandru Oprunenco welcomes only the initiative on the zero rate tax for the reinvested profit, which could spur in a way the investment activity in Moldova. In what concerns the fiscal amnesty and legalisation of the capital, Oprunenco said that these actions, in several cases, run counter to the Action Plan Moldova-EU and the commitments made in front of the International Monetary Fund. The fiscal amnesty creates unequal conditions for the economic entities, because those who did not respect the tax legislation will benefit from fiscal amnesty, and honest ones will see that their efforts to work correctly in a market economy were futile. At the same time, such initiatives will create certain obstacles in the future, because there will be many persons who will consider useless to respect the fiscal legislation, because of the fiscal amnesty example. At the same time, the experts says that the fiscal administration will be as well unmotivated in the case of the fiscal amnesty, because it will be proved that many debts can not be recouped, and this means that the system is not properly working. In the end, new debts will be accumulated and a new fiscal amnesty will be needed, Alexandru Oprunenco told Info-Prim Neo.