Avia Invest, the concessionaire of the Chisinau airport, will continue to transfer to the state half of its airport tax.
This follows from the decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova, which rejected the request of Avia Invest, which asked to suspend some provisions of the Law on the Population Support Fund, according to which the concessionaire of the Chisinau airport must transfer to the State for the Population Support Fund 50% of the airport tax levied for the modernization of the airport. The decision of the Constitutional Court is final and not subject to appeal. It should be noted that the levy for the modernization of the airport was previously set at 9 euros. In July last year, the parliament supported the government's initiative to transfer to the budget 50% of the airport tax collected by Avia Invest from each passenger, so that 4.5 euros out of 9 euros would go to the Population Support Fund and go to the needs of socially vulnerable citizens of our country. Avia Invest expressed its disagreement with the amendments, noting that this negatively affects the implementation of the investment program. In turn, the Public Property Agency indicated that the establishment of an airport tax in the amount of 50% of the € 9 tariff charged by Avia Invest from each passenger does not affect the activities and investments of Avia Invest, which, according to the contract, was supposed to carry out the work / investments from its own sources, and not from the accumulated funds by charging a fare of 9 euros per passenger. In addition, the Public Property Agency stressed that, despite requests from the competent authorities, Avia Invest did not provide financial information on the calculation of the airport tax at 9 euros per passenger and did not provide confirming calculations of the impact of the airport tax on its investments. The Population Support Fund was established to finance special-purpose programs in the field of social assistance, to finance social services included in the minimum package of social services in accordance with the conditions established by the government, and to finance social assistance canteens. The sources of funding for the Population Support Fund are: portability fee - in the amount of 50% of the monthly payment for the operation, management and maintenance of a centralized database in order to implement number portability; airport tax - in the amount of 50% of the monthly accumulated amount from the tax for airport modernization; fee for the provision of mobile services - in the amount of 2.5% of income from sales related to these services; transfers from an additional mandatory fee in the amount of 0.1% of the amount paid when individuals purchase foreign currency in cash and traveller's checks in foreign currency at foreign exchange offices and licensed banks that carry out cash exchange operations with individuals, including through currency exchange machines; sponsorship and other receipts that do not contradict the law.// 18.02.2021 — InfoMarket.
