Increasing the efficiency of the State Tax Service by ensuring the voluntary compliance of the taxpayers and establishing normal cooperation relations with the economic entities are the objectives set for the immediate future, the head of the Main State Tax Inspectorate Ion Prisacaru said when presenting the results achieved during a year since he was named to this post, IPN reports.

According to Ion Prisacaru, the State Tax Service for many years has been an inspection institution that imposes penalties on the taxpayers that do not fulfill the constitutional obligations and avoid paying taxes.

“I convinced myself from personal experience and from the discussions with the development partners and tax authorities from other countries that this model is outdated and the institution must be modernized so that it is transformed from an inspection body that imposes penalties into a body providing services for tax payers and communicating with them as they must realize the necessity of fulfilling their fiscal obligations to the state. Therefore, we submitted a relevant bill to the higher institutions for examination,” said the head of the Main State Tax Inspectorate.

Among the modernization measures, he enumerated the simplification of the tax administration procedures, facilitation of the procedure for providing individual tax solutions beforehand, and increasing the range of tax services provided for taxpayers, including electronic services.

“Currently, the State Tax Service develops modernization projects with the support of the Swedish Tax Agency, USAID, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and specialists from France, the Netherlands and other countries. Owing to this support, during a year we managed to design new electronic services in support of the taxpayers, such as online ordering of standard document forms, the current account, the electronic register of applications and decisions on VAT refunding,” said Ion Prisacaru, adding that they also implemented services to inform about and promote the tax legislation such as the Fiscal Calendar and the Informative Bulletin.

These acts resulted in a 12.6% rise in the amounts collected into the state budget and a 3.1% increase in the sums collected into the budgets of the territorial-administrative units in 2013. The incomes of the state social insurance budget and of the mandatory health insurance funds also increased.