At the beginning of the year, industrial property taxes, which are paid by legal entities and natural persons to have their industrial property, inventions, trademarks, industrial drawings and models protected, were increased by 20%.
The level of the tax may be updated annually, through a Government decision, considering inflation and the exchange rates valid on November 1. The Government decision takes effect on January 1.
On January 1, 2011, industrial property taxes should have been updated using an exchange rate of 4.3 lei to the euro, and not of RON3.6 to the euro, which would have translated into a 20% increase. The Government decided through an emergency ordinance approved on December 30, 2010 to postpone the increase by one year, until January 1, 2012, as the measure would have reduced the number of protection requests.
In 2011, the Government failed to postpone the tax increase for the following year, so industrial property taxes are 20% higher starting January 2012.