Several dairy companies during about eight years, until 2019, sold cheese products and sour cream with foreign fats at a reduced VAT rate of 8% instead of 20%. The Competition Council determined that as a result, the amount of taxes paid into the state budget was by almost 100 million lei lower. Moreover, there were created unfair competition conditions with regard to the companies that paid VAT of 20%, IPN reports, quoting a press release of the Council.

The Competition Council established that the privilege was given by the National Standardization and Metrology Institute to SA “JLC”, SA “Incomlac”, SA “Lactis” and SA “Fabrica de unt din Florești” by illegally allocating tariff positions for dairy products containing foreign fats. As a result, discriminatory conditions were created on the market for the other dairy producers.

The companies making dairy products that contain only milk fats incurred higher costs when purchasing such fats or were unable to sell dairy products with sufficient profitability or the dairy products were not competitive by price against the dairy products with foreign fats.

The Council informed about its findings the State Tax Service, which is to take measures to determine if the involved companies paid taxes correctly.