The private apartments that provide accommodation to foreign tourists create unfair competition in the tourism sector. Even if they perform an economic activity, the owners of these apartments do not pay local and other taxes. Director of the Tourism Agency of Moldova Stanislav Rusu has told IPN that to work legally, the apartment owners should change the purpose of the apartment from residential into non-residential. But the apartment owners will never resort to such an act.
“No one will agree to change the purpose of the own apartment as the owner can change his mind in a period and will again want to live there. We think the problem can be solved by facilitating the registration of such a kind of activity so that the owner is not obliged to change the purpose of the apartment,” stated Stanislav Rusu.
According to the director of the Tourism Agency, the private apartments that provide accommodation to tourists should be registered as accommodation service, without needing to change their purpose. When the owners start to make profit, they should pay taxes.
In the Republic of Moldova, there are about 250 tourist accommodation facilities. The hotels are the most numerous ones and are followed by pensions, villages, motels and spas. The official statistics do not include private apartments and village homes that provide accommodation. Of the 250 registered accommodation facilities, only120 possess classification certificates.
