The Patty “Dignity and Truth Platform” (PPDA) requests Prime Minister Dorin Recean to take under control the problem of patent holders. The party’s chairman Dinu Plîngău in a news conference said the decision to annul the patent as from July 1 is not opportune and there is a risk that the over 5,000 patent holders and their families will take to the streets, IPN reports.
Dinu Plîngău said there are alternative mutually advantageous solutions to the problem and protests can be avoided. The people can gradually realize the necessity of such a move and can switch over to another kind of activity, not by prohibition, but by encouragement.
For the purpose, the PPDA presented a series of proposals for easier switching over from trade based on patent to individual entrepreneurial activity. It proposed discussing and designing a clear independent activity mechanism intended for different social groups, initiating courses to teach patent holders about the new form of activity and how to use the cash register and register of purchases and how to pay the 1% income tax that is mandatory in the case of independent activity.
The party also demands to keep the patent-based trade activity until 2025 so that the patent holders have time to see all the benefits of independent activity and voluntarily switch over to this activity. “In this process, the older ones for whom the patent is a source of livelihood should not be ignored. The negative social transformations underwent now against the background of a number of crises make us identify solutions, even temporary ones, so as to offer more support to our citizens and to protect their modest incomes, like the incomes of those who hold a patent,” said PPDA deputy chairwoman Stela Macari.
Dinu Plîngău noted that if no alternative solutions are found for the over 5,000 patent holders, a large part of these would become part of the diaspora.
Earlier, Minister of Economy Dumitru Alaiba commented on the dissatisfaction expressed by patent holders with the switchover to independent activity as from July 1. He said that traders will be obliged to have cash registers and this decision is final. Any commercial activity should be accompanied by cash registers and everyone should pay the correct part of taxes. Some of the patent holders already started to apply the new regime. “I care a lot about the entrepreneurs, any kind of entrepreneurs. The current patent holders are authentic micro-entrepreneurs. They should be supported and helped to develop. I know that some of the patent holders do not want to accept the new conditions. We have discussed the situation for over half a year. As I said, the cash register must be introduced,” stated Dumitru Alaiba.
The minister noted that the new independent activity offers much better conditions than work based on patent: 1% of the sales, cash register without money, no reports and papers, cap on sales that is for four times higher than in the case of patents and many other benefits.
