Romanian Execs Afraid To Claim Penalties For Late VAT Refunds - Survey

"The interests belong rightfully to the taxpayers, but the polled companies were reticent about immediate benefits, citing potential repercussions from the authorities," the survey noted.

According to Deloitte, Romania's law should stipulate automatic payment of the interests if the fiscal authorities miss the deadline for giving tax refunds.

Deloitte polled financial managers and tax department heads with 130 Romanian companies. According to the survey, over 40% of the companies have filed for VAT refunds amounting to over EUR1 million since 2007, but they faced big delays in recovering their money.

"VAT refunds seem to be Romanian companies' primordial challenge in the fiscal sector," the survey noted.

It said that 42% of the polled company officials have received VAT refunds after three to six months since they've filed the request, whereas the legal deadline in Romania to pay tax refunds is of 45 days.

One quarter of the respondents said the delay was over six months, while 8% of them said the VAT refunds were paid after more than one year since the application was filed.

According to data from the Finance Ministry, total VAT refunds to taxpayers reached 4.67 billion lei (EUR1-RON4.293) at the end of July, of which 39.9% represented refunds that were paid within the legal term, while 44.4% were late payments.

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