Many normative acts stipulating fiscal incentives to be granted to several categories of economic agents are triggering misunderstandings and confusion.
As a solution to this situation, the Finance Ministry intends to draw a fiscal code comprising all the fiscal incentives stipulated by the laws and ordinances in effect. According to State Secretary Gheorghe Oana, this means that fiscal facilities stipulated in the direct investment draft law drawn by the Development Ministry should be removed.
Parliament has recently endorsed Law 189/2001, approving Emergency Ordinance 217/1999, which had cancelled most fiscal incentives granted to the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and was enforced starting with January 1, 2000.
At that time, Law 133/1999 on SME support was suspended through the budget Law for 1999. Consequently, when Law 133 was re-enforced on January 1, 2001, fiscal stipulations regarding incentives granted for re-invested profit overlapped with those included in Ordinance 217.
Law 189/2001 approves Ordinance 217/1999 on profit tax, specifying that the articles concerning incentives for profit tax payment will be abrogated, as they will be inserted in Law 133/1999.
SME minister Silvia Ciornei says that Parliament's decision is a procedural one, as Ordinance 217/1999 regarding profit tax completes Law 133 for SMEs. "We will hurry to re-publish Law 133 and the articles will be itemised again in order to exclude any possible confusions," Silvia Ciornei said.
The SMEs minister states that "fiscal incentives granted to SMEs are still in effect, as the ordinance for profit tax enforced on January 1, 2000 has been recently approved by Parliament through Law 189/2001."
Premier Adrian Nastase last weekend said that, together with the ministers in charge with this issue, he would examine the enforcement of profit tax Ordinance 189/2001 to see if there is no "interference" with Law 133/1999 on incentives granted to the SMEs.
Adrian Nastase added he had no time to "closely check" this issue, but said he had discussed it with SME minister Silvia Ciornei, who explained that Parliament had endorsed a law issued by the former Government and which "confirms the past effects" of the respective normative act.
"The ordinance for fiscal incentives approved last December by our Government is still in effect and, consequently, the general frame for SMEs is the one settled by the Executive," Adrian Nastase added.
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