Moldovan parliament approves measures on backing business environment, residents in context of epidemiological situation

Chisinau, 23 April /MOLDPRES/ - The MPs, at a today’s meeting, adopted with 59 votes the draft law on the establishment of measures to support the entrepreneurial activity and the amendment of normative acts.  

The draft was worked out by the government, in the context of the economic and social effects of the situation dealing with COVID-19 and was unveiled in plenum by Prime Minister Ion Chicu.

The PM stressed that the essence of the law was dealing both with the attenuation of the immediate effects of the epidemiological situation on the business environment and the residents and with the conditions due to appear after they are overcome.  

To support the business environment, including employers and employees, the draft proposes the mechanism of implementation of the programme on subsidization of interests. The concerned programme is conceived to facilitate the enterprises’ access to the borrowing of loans on the period 1 May -31 December 2020. The programme’s goal is to provide support to the enterprises borrowing  credits, without restricting their purpose, through compensation of the sum of the monthly interest paid or which is to be paid on the loans borrowed.      

The document also sees the establishment of the legal framework for the implementation of the programme of reimbursement of the value added tax (VAT) meant for the subsequent period. Thus, the tax payers who pay VAT have right to ask for the reimbursement of the tax, which will significantly enhance the enterprises’ liquidity.   

The fiscal policy measure of cancelling the exemption from the tax on the income got from the investments made in the state transferrable securities is aimed at making uniform the fiscal treatment for various financial instruments.     

At the same time, to ensure the support of the enterprises from the HoReCa sector, concomitantly with not allowing the increase of the VAT sum on debt, the VAT quota is proposed to be diminished from 20 to 15 per cent.  

The draft also contains provisions which regard the enforcement of exemptions from VAT, excise duties, customs duty and tax for the customs procedures for the goods consumables imported by international intervention teams/modules, which participate in the international exercises of management of the consequences of the emergency situations, carried out in Moldova.  

To increase the budget revenues, the quota of the tax for the extraction of useful minerals is proposed to be established – the average value per unit of the mineral extracted in double value.

Also, the draft law suggests the merger of social insurances contributions (both of the ones owed by the employer and the ones owed by employees) at the level of employer (with simultaneous exclusion of the health insurances premiums), which will allow distributing the fiscal burden between the employer and the employees. The draft sees, inter alia, the backing of employers in the farming sector, by giving them right to benefit, in certain cases, from the compensation of the mandatory state social insurances contributions. The draft also proposes introduction of two new taxes, namely the ‘’portability tax’’ and the ‘’airport tax.’’ The draft also proposes adjustings related to the Customs Code and the Law on the Customs Service, as well as the Law on local public money.