Coronavirus update no. 11/2020 – Various accounting and tax provisions

In the Official Gazette no. 319 from April 16, 2020, was published the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 48/2020 regarding some financial and tax measures, representing clarifications or changes to the incentives offered by the authorities during the coronavirus epidemic.

The measures taken through GEO 48/2020 have a wide range of application. We will present below the main provisions of this ordinance related to accounting, tax and tax procedure.

 

Applicability of tax incentives for the construction sector

It is clarified that the tax incentives provided for the construction sector are not granted for allowances received from the state budget for persons whose employment contract has been temporarily suspended due to the effects of coronavirus (technical unemployment), as well as for benefits received by some parents that have to supervise the children while schools are closed.

 

Subsequent tax audits for VAT reimbursements

With certain exceptions, during the state of emergency and 30 days after it ends, the VAT reimbursement returns will be settled, while the tax audit will take place at a later date, if the inspection has not yet started. This provision shall also apply to current requests for which the Reimbursement Decision has not been issued.

Large and medium taxpayers will have to meet 3 conditions for their returns to be settled with subsequent tax audit: they should not have criminal offenses in the tax record, they are not considered by the tax authorities to have a risk of undue reimbursement or they are not in voluntary liquidation or insolvency proceedings.

In addition to the 3 presented above, 2 more conditions will have to be met by the other taxpayers in order to have their tax refunded before the tax inspection: to have requested in the past a VAT reimbursement at least once, and the requested VAT should not be from more than 12 monthly periods (or 4 quarterly periods).

NOTE: Settling the VAT reimbursement returns with a subsequent inspection only means that the tax audit is postponed, not cancelled.

 

The statute of limitation is deferred

The statute of limitation for imposing taxes (by the tax authorities) or for requesting tax refunds (by taxpayers) is deferred with the period ending 30 days after the state of emergency has ceased.

 

Exemption for the activity-specific tax

For 2020, taxpayers that have to pay the activity-specific tax (hotels, restaurants etc.) do not owe the tax for the period in which they wholly or partially interrupted their activity during the state of emergency. Thus, the tax will be computed relative to the days in which they carried out their activity from the 365 calendar days.

In order to apply this exemption, taxpayers must hold the emergency situations certificate and must not be declared insolvent.

 

Rescheduling of tax payments

Certain incentives are also applicable to taxpayers who benefit from a rescheduling of tax payments (e.g., no penalties are computed when the installments are paid late, some deadlines are delayed, the statute of limitation is deferred, etc.).

 

New form of D100 tax return          

Through NAFA President Order no. 935/2020 a new version of the tax return D100 was published. This version allows for the bonus offered for timely payments of the corporate income tax or micro-enterprise tax (i.e. until April 25, 2020) to be specifically filled in the tax return. More details regarding this bonus may be found in our previous Update no. 10, which you may access here.

 

Annual financial statements submission deadline is postponed

The deadline for submitting the financial statements / accounting reports for 2019 is extended from May 29, 2020 to July 31, 2020 (inclusive).

Please note that other provisions of the Companies Law did not change and therefore the obligation remains for the General Meeting of the Shareholders to take place within a maximum of 5 months after the end of the financial year.

 

 

In order to have an efficient communication, we established a direct link with the related department. For the subject of the current Update, the requests for tax consultancy may be sent to [email protected] with a brief description of the query. One of our consultants will answer or contact you shortly.

 

 

 

Disclaimer

The information in this newsletter is intended to give you an overview of legislative news; the newsletter does not contain a complete analysis of each topic. For more information about the subjects presented, please contact us. We do not accept any responsibility for decisions or omissions followed by the use of the content of this newsletter. All Boscolo&Partners newsletters are available at the following address: http://www.crowe.ro.

 

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