Moldova is flooded with fake invoices – leader of public association

Tens of copies of invoices, with the same registration number, are circulating throughout Moldova, while authorities are taking no measures to counteract this phenomenon, chairman of “Moldova Mea” association Fiodor Ghelici told a news conference on Monday, March 19. According to Ghelici, the fakes can not be distinguished from the original invoices, because these are most probably printed in the same place. The quoted source says that such invoices are issued by ghost companies, as schemes for pushing smuggled goods, laundering money when paying VAT, dodging taxes. Moreover, the Tax Inspectorate establishes the forgery only a long time after the transaction, when it is found a larger number of invoices with the same number. As Ghelici says, such invoices are often issued for agricultural production, because farmers have low incomes and refuse to legalise the transactions to avoid paying high taxes. Thus, they sell the production to certain “swindlers” who have the number of doubled invoices already prepared. He mentioned that such invoices were also discovered at the “Carmez” and “Bucuria” enterprises. Eventually, not the firm that issued such invoices is held responsible for such violations, because it is either liquidated in the meantime, or is registered on the “name of a pensioner who has no idea he is the manager of firm or of a student who lost his id papers”, but the economic entity that bought the merchandise from the given firm, though it bears no responsibility for it. Moreover, Ghelici says, the economic entities can not check the authenticity of these invoices immediately, as the Tax Inspectorate request them to submit applications for their authenticity, that is after the transaction had already been performed. Ghelici presented to the journalists the copy of a report, drawn up by an employee at the Security and Information Service, attesting the existence of 1400 doubled invoices for a single invoice number alone. At the same time, he mentioned that a judge of the Supreme Court of Justice told him that there are hundreds of economic entities in the country that are in litigation with the Tax Inspectorate for what they call “illegal fining of a firm that bought the production”. Ghelici also asserts that the same judge said that he received indications not to rule in favour of economic entities. Ghelici also says, with reference to a representative of the Anticorruption Centre, that reports in this regard have been presented to Moldovan President long time ago, but no reaction followed so far. According to the same source, such illegalities are being allowed in Moldova for many years, without informing the public opinion about this problem or about the actions undertaken by the state’s authorised bodies to counteract this phenomenon.