Reducing public sector spending and reducing waste, prioritizing investments with real impact on objective criteria, introducing performance indicators and eliminating bonuses that are not directly related to the professional performance of public sector employees are among the main measures supported by the representatives of Romanian Business Leaders for balancing and reducing the budget deficit during the consultations at Cotroceni Palace.

Also, other measures aim at restructuring, merging/dismantling or reducing spending with the multitude of agencies, institutions and institutes currently existing as well as making the arrears generated by companies in the public system transparent, including those that do not pay their taxes and duties to the state (VAT, etc.) in order to determine their impact on the ‘VAT gap’ and take targeted measures to reduce this gap and improve collection from companies that do not pay VAT at all.

In an open letter sent to the President of Romania, Nicușor Dan, the Romanian Business Leaders organization considers with ‘firmness and consistency’ the maintenance of the single tax rate for the income of individuals, with the fair alignment of taxation for all categories of income and the elimination of unfair competition generated by tax optimization options, according to Agerpres.

The business representatives call for the continuation of digitalization and the acceleration of the application of risk analysis based on the significant information currently collected by ANAF following the implementation of multiple digitalization projects (e-invoice, SAF-T, e-transport, etc.) and the implementation of rapid tax inspections generated by the discrepancies resulting from this data analysis.

RBL also demands the cancellation of taxation on turnover and special constructions for companies, which has proven its inefficiency, by inducing losses in viable companies or stopping investments, as well as the cancellation of price capping measures in various sectors, which affect their economic competitiveness and put additional pressure on the state budget.

‘We do not support measures to increase taxation. These are no longer acceptable and in no way sufficient in the current context in the absence of a visible and courageous effort from the public administration. Anything else would mean perpetuating an economic injustice and stifling the very engine of Romania’s development: honest private initiative,’ the document states.

At the same time, RBL representatives appreciate the transparency and openness offered by the presidential administration since the beginning of its mandate. ‘We hope that this will soon materialize in the transparency of more public data, especially since you support a system of public policies based on data and information. Thus, it would be easier for us – the business community and civil society – to issue opinions based on figures and rigorous analyses, which would lead to economic policies beneficial to the entire economy and the population,’ the open letter states.

In this context, RBL is currently responding to the request to work together to achieve our common goal, namely ‘a Romania in which our children would want to live’.

‘We, Romanian Business Leaders, are currently responding to the request to work together to achieve our common goal: a Romania in which our children would want to live. Mr. President, you have a historic opportunity to set the tone for a new stage: one in which the state becomes more flexible, more efficient, more attentive and more responsible. We, the entrepreneurs, are ready to contribute. But our contribution must come alongside a real reform of the public system, not instead of it,’ concluded the RBL representatives in the document signed by Sergiu Neguț, president of the Romanian Business Leaders Board of Directors.

The Romanian Business Leaders Foundation is an impartial, non-partisan organization of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs that develops projects with social impact and supports a society based on liberal democracy, fully integrated and in solidarity with its European family. The Foundation’s projects subscribe to the three areas that the RBL community considers important for the development of society: entrepreneurship, education and good governance.