Lawyer accuses Fiscal Inspectorate of infringing private lawyers’ and notaries’ rights

Lawyer Roman Zadoinov accuses the Fiscal Inspectorate of infringing private lawyers’ and notaries’ rights when requesting the payment of a 5% mandatory health insurance fee for the last year instead of 2.5% as stipulated by law and collected from other tax-payers. Zadoinov stated Tuesday, January 15, at a press conference, that although he had not been put in such a situation personally, a lot of lawyers and notaries have told him that at the end of the last year and beginning of this year fiscal inspectors informed them of not having paid correctly health insurance contributions and that they would be sanctioned and would have to pay penalties. According to the lawyer, the Law on the Mandatory Health Insurance stipulates a 5% fee from income, out of which 2.5% are paid by the employer and 2.5% by the employee. The Law does not read that private lawyers and notaries have to pay a 5% fee, the quoted source said. He also pointed out that he had sought explanations from Fiscal Inspectorate officials and that he had received an official reply reading that, according to some calculations made by the Inspectorate, private lawyers and notaries must pay 5% and not 2.5%. The Inspectorate explained that state notaries must pay contributions in the amount of 2.5% because they are state employees, Roman Zadoinov said. Although during the year private lawyers and notaries have paid contributions in the amount of 2.5% and submitted reports regarding the transferred amounts, fiscal inspectors informed them of the so-called infringements only at the end of the year, Zadoinov pointed out. According to him, this strategy aimed at making lawyers pay higher penalties and impeding in such a way their activity. Roman Zadoinov states that the way the Fiscal Inspectorate treats private lawyers and notaries is discriminatory and violates the principle of equality. The lawyer warns he will appeal to the European Court for Human Rights if he is put in such a situation.