Aneta Zasavitski, president of the National Association of Restaurants and Recreational Places, said the replacement of the VAT rate of 20% with the current rate of 10% in the hospitality industry by the Filip Government last year contributed to greater transparency in the sector, to an increase in the number of official employments and of legally issued sales slips. If the VAT rate of 20% is restored, all the benefits gained so far will disappear, IPN reports.

In the program “Reply” on Prime TV channel, Aneta Zasavitski said the official employments earlier represented 30%, but now rose to 70%, while the sales slip issuing level increased from 40% to 90%. “The regeneration of companies is at a rather good level. The restoration of the VAT rate of 20% will lead to the disappearance of all these benefits,” she stated, noting the fact that no consultations were held with the businesses operating in the sector generated disagreement and public discussions were proposed only after all the business associations started to publish letters, to issue statements and to warn the Government. “In fact, these cannot be called public consultations as long as the law on decisional transparency is not respected.”

Economic expert Veaceslav Valcov said that if the businesses of the hospitality industry had paid all the taxes existing in the economy, these would have suffered monthly losses of about 25%. In 2018, a situation was witnessed when the business entities could not cope with the entire fiscal burden. The fiscal changes made by the Filip Government didn’t solve all the problems faced by the business entities, but laid the basis of a positive tendency in leaving the underground economy . Despite the offered tax concessions, the budget wasn’t affected because the hospitality industry businesses generated the same amount of money.

Economic expert Veaceslav Ioniță recommended the authorities to draw attention to the fact that the state budget is not an accounting document. “The state budget is a document by which we see how the authorities intend to develop the country and to protect the citizens. This is a policy document rather than a document showing the revenues and costs,” he noted.

On July 23, Minister of Finance Natalia Gavrilița announced the authorities decided to restore the VAT rate of 20% and annul the current rate of 10% used in the hospitality industry.