The Commission’s requests take the form of reasoned opinions. In the absence of a satisfactory response within two months, the Commission may refer Romania to the EU’s Court of Justice, the Commission said in a statement Thursday.
The Commission has formally requested Romania to change its administrative practice of refunding VAT.
“Almost all VAT refunds claims are systematically settled with unreasonable delays, sometimes taking over 180 days. This practice is not in line with EU VAT rules which foresee that VAT should be refunded swiftly so as not to create a burden for taxpayers. Even if Member States have a certain margin of manoeuver in determining refund conditions, Romanian taxpayers bear the burden of VAT for too long as a result of the current delays,” the Commission said.
Also, one of the Commission’s reasoned opinions to Romania targets the country’s failure to fully transpose the Directive on equality between men and women in self-employed activity. The deadline for transposition expired on 5 August 2012 and a letter of formal notice was sent to Romania in September 2012. So far Romania has only partially introduced the directive into national law.
The Directive on self-employed workers and assisting spouses guarantees social protection rights for millions of women in the labor market, strengthening female entrepreneurship. Under these rules, female self-employed workers and assisting spouses or life partners of self-employed workers are granted a maternity allowance and a leave of at least 14 weeks, should they choose to take it. In the absence of a satisfactory response within two months, the Commission can refer Romania to the Court of Justice of the EU, according to the Commission.
The European Commission has also requested Romania to align its rules on valuation and accounting of purchased debt claims with EU law. According to EU law, as a general rule, items shown in the annual accounts shall be valued using a method based on the principle of purchase price or production costs. Under Romanian accounting legislation, transferred debt claims are to be shown using their nominal value in the books and records of the transferee. EU law does not provide for any derogation which permits the use of the nominal value of purchased debt claims for accounting purposes. Therefore the Commission requests Romania, in the form of a reasoned opinion, to take action to fully comply with EU rules. If the Romanian authorities do not notify measures taken to ensure compliance with EU rules within two months, the Commission may refer the matter to the EU Court of Justice.
The European Commission has officially asked Romania to amend its discriminatory tax treatment of employment income of non-residents. Romanian legislation does not allow non-resident individuals who work and earn all or most of their income in Romania to benefit from personal and family deductions. This may result in unfair higher taxation in Romania, as the taxpayer’s personal and family situation risks being disregarded in both his country of residence where he does not have sufficient taxable income and in Romania as the country of employment.
According to the Commission, these Romanian provisions are contrary to the principle of free movement of workers as set out in the EU Treaties and EU case-law which has established that non-resident taxpayers earning all or most of their income in an EU Member State must receive the same treatment as resident taxpayers.
The Commission also announced Thursday that it opened infringement proceedings against several states, including Romania, for failing to convey information regarding the implementation of the Industrial Emissions Directive into national laws.