The persons with locomotor disabilities will be exempted from import duties when bringing a vehicle into the country if the customs value of this does not exceed 400,000 lei and the engine’s cylinder capacity is under 1,600 cubic centimeters. To import a vehicle without a price limit, the unit of transport with the capacity of at most eight places should be outfitted by with special equipment for transporting persons with locomotor disabilities. This is provided in a bill that was proposed by MPs of the Party of Action and Solidarity. They warn about the importation of luxury cars with the involvement of persons with locomotor disabilities for whom these exemptions are intended, IPN reports.

The PAS MPs said the persons with locomotor disabilities can benefit from a transport allowance or can benefit from the right to import a vehicle once in five years for personal use without paying import duties for vehicles with an engine cylinder capacity of at most 2,500 cubic centimeters. These vehicles can be driven only by persons with locomotor disabilities or persons accompanying or looking after them. Regrettably, as the PAS MPs who analyzed the situation ascertained, persons with locomotor disabilities have been involved in dubious schemes to import and use motor vehicles. Third persons used the imported vehicles contrary to their final purpose after paying money to persons with locomotor disabilities.

In a news conference, MP Sergiu Lazarencu said that 13 inspections were carried out in 2019-2021 to determine how correctly these concessions were applied. Consequently, there were recalculated additional import duties in the amount of 1.2 million lei. In 2022, the Customs Service performed almost 40 inspections as a result of which payments of 5.5 million lei were recalculated. “The large number of luxury cars imported with tax concessions generates doubts as to the subsequent use of these vehicles, primarily their final purpose. The value of duties not paid on the import of such vehicles varies between 18,000 and 305,000 lei, totaling about 203 million lei in 2021,” said the MP. He noted that the bill is designed to regulate concrete cases when the person can be exempted from import duties.

“By this bill, we aim to annihilate the phenomenon that expanded the past four years,” said MP Dorian Istratii.