“We support the introduction in Romania of a voluntary compliance program. Let’s use other countries’ examples because maybe Romanian taxpayers want to pay but fear penalties,” Mitroi said at a conference organized by PwC.
She talked about the examples of Australia, UK and the U.S. which have had numerous voluntary compliance programs for predetermined periods of time or addressing taxpayers in certain professions.
Voluntary compliance does not entail the write-off of back-taxes.
“There are taxpayers who may have made mistakes and not realized it. We should be able to help these taxpayers who made a mistake and want to repair it,”said Mitroi.
She said a voluntary compliance program would require the tax authority to put out clear guidelines, clear and transparent procedures, stating there would be no penalties.
“This is the proposition we have made to ANAF, we hope to work together on a voluntary compliance program,” said Mitroi.
The Romanian tax authority is currently running a voluntary compliance program for wealthy individual taxpayers, targeting 400 people. The program will be extended this year to include 4,800 other taxpayers whose revenues are considerably higher than stated in their tax records.