The takeaway
The Government of Romania has adopted Emergency Ordinance no. 20/2023 (EOG no. 20/2023) amending and supplementing the rules for staggered payment of tax obligations in classic form, as well as those for staggered payment in simplified form regulated in Title VII of the Fiscal Procedure Code. The changes are correlated with the legal provisions regarding the procedure for maintaining or changing the restructuring of budget obligations regulated by Government Ordinance no. 6/2019.
In detail
We present below the most important changes and additions that GEO no. 20/2023 brings to the Fiscal Procedure Code regarding staggered payment, as well as some relevant aspects from the perspective of their correlation with the provisions of Government Ordinance no. 6/2019:
Fiscal/budgetary obligations to be recovered representing state aid or de minimis granted from state sources or resources or those managed by the state and excise duties provided for in Title VIII of the Fiscal Code are excluded from the scope of staggered payment.
Debtors who do not own property to use as guarantees in the amount provided for in art. 193 alin. (13)−(15) of the Fiscal Procedure Code and cannot constitute any kind of guarantee, or when the amount of the established guarantees is less than 50% of the amount of the outstanding tax obligations that are the subject to the payment facilities. However, if they meet all the other conditions for granting the deferral, they can request a deferral and present substantiating information regarding a temporary lack of cash availability and the financial capacity to pay during the period of deferred payment. The late-payment penalties contained in the tax attestation certificate are not deferred for payment and are included in the instalments.
The request for scheduling may be accompanied by a proposed schedule for payment.
The late-payment penalties in the tax attestation certificate are not deferred for payment and are included in the instalment if the debtor provides guarantees of value greater than 50% of the amount of the outstanding tax obligations that are the subject to the payment facilities but insufficient compared to the guarantee amount provided for in art. 193 para. (13)-(15) of the Fiscal Procedure Code and the deferral was granted for a maximum period of five years.
The ceilings of staggered tax obligations for payment, up to which there is no obligation to establish guarantees, have been eliminated.
The conditions for maintaining the validity of payment instalments have been supplemented with a new condition, namely the payment of excise duties not extinguished on the date of communication of the payment instalment decision and which are not subject to payment instalments, within no more than 30 days as of the date of communication of this decision due to them being excluded from the scope of granting the payment schedule.
The number of allowed requests to change the payment schedule has been reduced from two requests to just one.
The debtor can submit requests to change the schedule whenever necessary for the fiscal obligations established in fiscal administrative acts that have been suspended and for which the suspension of the execution of the fiscal administrative act ended after the date of communication of the decision to schedule payment. Requests can also be submitted for fiscal obligations established by other authorities whose administration was transferred to ANAF after the issuance of a decision to stagger payments, except situations where the debtor requested staggered payment of those amounts.
The debtor will have the opportunity to request, only once in a calendar year or part of a calendar year, the maintenance of a schedule which is no longer valid if the request is approved by ANAF before the execution of the guarantee or before the extinguishment of all fiscal obligations subject to payment instalments.
Simplified form tax obligations representing excise duties, taxes and mandatory social contributions, through withholding or withholding at source, as defined by the Fiscal Code, and taxes related to activities in the field of gambling do not fall within the scope of deferred payment.
The conditions for maintaining payment instalments have been supplemented, in a simplified form, with two other conditions:
- the payment of excise duties and taxes related to activities in the field of gambling not extinguished on the date of communication of the decision to defer payment and which are not subject to payment deferral, within no more than 30 days as of the date of notification of this decision, because they were excluded from the scope of granting payment instalments in a simplified form;
- payment of taxes and mandatory social contributions with withholding at source or withheld at source, not extinguished on the date of communication of the decision to defer payment and which are not subject to payment deferment, within no more than 60 days as of the date of notification of this decision, because they were excluded from the scope of granting payment instalments in a simplified form.
The interest due in the case of deferred payment, in simplified form, has been increased from 0.01% to 0.02% for each day of delay.
The possibility of concurrent granting of both instalment payment (classic) and instalment payment in simplified form has been removed.
These changes apply both to applications for staggered payment and to modify or maintain staggered payment submitted after the entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023.
Debtors who have submitted a single application for modification or maintenance of the staggered payment, approved by ANAF, in the period between 1 January 2023 and the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, for the remaining period of 2023, can submit only one request to change or maintain the staggered payment.
If the debtor submits the first request for modification or maintenance after the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, for the remaining period of the year 2023, they can only benefit from this modification or maintenance of the staggered payment.
In the case of payment schedules that are ongoing or that have lost their validity as at the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, requests to modify or maintain the payment schedule that are unresolved at this date are resolved according to this ordinance. Thus, the debtor will be able to submit a single request to modify or maintain the payment schedule during 2023.
In the case of the payment facilities granted in the procedure for the restructuring of budgetary obligations which are ongoing or which have lost their validity as at the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, the changes brought by it also apply to debtors who submit requests for modification/maintenance of the payment facility after this date.
For debtors who submitted/submit requests to change/maintain the payment facility during 2023, the previously mentioned changes are applied as follows:
- if the debtor has submitted a single application for modification/maintenance of the payment facility, approved by the fiscal body, in the period between 1 January 2023 and the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, for the remaining period of 2023, can submit only one more request to modify/maintain the payment facility;
- in the event that the debtor has submitted two applications for modification/maintenance of payment scheduling, approved by the fiscal body, in the period between 1 January 2023 and the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, for the remaining period of 2023, they can no longer benefit from a new modification/maintenance of the staggered payment;
- if the debtor submits the first request for modification/maintenance after the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, for the remaining period of 2023, they can only benefit from this modification/maintenance of the payment facility.
In the case of the payment facilities granted in the restructuring procedure of ongoing budgetary obligations or which have lost their validity as at the date of entry into force of GEO no. 20/2023, requests for modification/maintenance of payment facilities that are unresolved at this date are resolved according to the legislation in force on the date of submission of the request. In this case, after the approval of the request for modification/maintenance, the debtor can no longer submit a new request for modification/maintenance of the payment facility during 2023.
Source: [Emergency Ordinance no. 20/2023 for amending and completing the Fiscal Procedure Code, as well as for the amendment of Government Ordinance no. 6/2019 regarding the establishment of fiscal facilities, published in the Official Gazette no. 290 dated 6 April 2023]