The Moldovan Parliament passed in the second reading a new package of measures to reduce bureaucracy in the tax and customs sectors.
This is the second package of laws, which provides for the facilitation of the business environment by eliminating the existing administrative barriers in the regulatory framework. One of the new measures proposed in the tax field refers to the possibility to deduct VAT on the basis of fiscal checks issued by cash registers connected to the Automated Information System "Electronic Sales Monitoring" for purchases, the value of which for each check does not exceed 2000 lei with VAT, but not more than 10 thousand lei for one tax period, provided that they are paid with a business payment card. At the same time, the limit of the amount not considered as a tax debt will be increased 5 times. Thus, the sums up to 500 lei will not be considered a debt to the budget. At the moment this limit is 100 lei. Another provision of the II package, aimed at reducing bureaucracy in the business sector, is the abolition of the cash register equipment log, which will save entrepreneurs from the need to glue Z-reports and will save at least 5 million working hours per year. Tax legislation will also provide for digitalization of reporting with tax authorities. Electronic documents and remote communication will be used for interaction with the State Tax Service (STS), the obligation to use only a holographic signature or to provide some documents only on paper will be eliminated. The authors of the draft law also propose to revise the procedure for applying VAT exemption related to re-import in case of e-commerce in accordance with European practice. Also, the barrier provided for the consideration of appeals in the Dispute Resolution Board will be removed by halving the minimum obligation that can be appealed in the Dispute Resolution Board to the STS: from 500 thousand to 250 thousand lei - for economic agents and from 250 thousand to 125 thousand lei - for individuals. The high level of liabilities today does not allow using this mechanism of dispute resolution to the full extent. At the same time, the Dispute Resolution Board will be composed of at least 50% of representatives of business associations related to the customs sector. Another innovation is the inclusion of gasoline and diesel fuel in the list of products allowed under the customs warehouse regime. This will facilitate import and export operations, storage, loading and unloading of petroleum products and liquefied gases. Also, the right of the customs authority to accept bank guarantees only from an approved bank will be removed, as guarantees issued by any licensed bank in the country will be accepted. Another action is aimed at simplifying the process of declaring goods imported into the territory of Moldova and exported by mail. Thus, citizens will be exempted from the obligation to submit a detailed customs declaration and will be able to submit a simplified customs declaration. According to the authorities' estimates, the proposed legislative package will allow the business community to save at least 500 million lei annually, which is about 0.2% of the GDP. The legislative initiative to amend the Tax Code and the Customs Code was elaborated by the Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalization jointly with the Ministry of Finance, in cooperation with the Economic Council under the Prime Minister, with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and GIZ Moldova - the Moldovan branch of the German government foundation for international cooperation. // 09.11.2023 - InfoMarket.
