Moldovan government approves budgetary, fiscal, customs policy for 2021

Chisinau, 1 December /MOLDPRES/ - The government has examined and approved the Cabinet Decision on the budgetary, fiscal and customs policy for 2021, the government’s  communication and protocol department has reported.  

Given the specific character of the 2020 year, triggered by the current epidemiological situation nationally and internationally, as well as the natural calamities from the farming sector, several budgetary and fiscal adaptations of the public policies were needed. Proceeding from this situation, most measures are aimed at backing more economic sectors hit by the pandemic and the severe drought from this year.  

The draft contains both measures for diminishing the fiscal pressure and new mechanisms of subsidization, in order to support the economic re-launch.

The draft law was consulted with the public authorities and business associations, with over 300 proposals received and considered. At the same time, more meetings with the business environment and other interested sides were held. The participants in these meetings discussed the provisions of the draft law and their suggestions for the fiscal and customs legislation. Also, the draft law was discussed at the national commission for collective consultations and negotiations and on the platform of the working group of the State Commission for regulating the entrepreneurial activity.  

Most proposals reflected in the draft are expected and demanded by the business environment. Among them, there are:

- standardization of the income tax’s quotas;

- increasing the exemptions provided to private people, especially a 50-per cent growth of the exemption for maintained people;

- cutting from 18 to 12 per cent of the quota of the income tax for the people who work in the justice sector;

- extending the term of enforcing fiscal facilities on the income tax for the IT sector;

- changing the regime of the value added tax (VAT) in agriculture through applying a reduced VAT quota for fertilizers concomitantly with the applying of the same quota of VAT for the primary agricultural production;

- reducing the VAT quota for the HORECA sector from 15 to 12 per cent;

- extending the programme on VAT’s reimbursement for the farmers hit by natural calamities till 30 September 2021, within the limit of the quantum of the salary taxes paid;

- ensuring the fair competition through revising the fiscal treatment of imported goods by international postal shipments, through decreasing the non-taxable ceiling from 200 to 100 euros, starting from 1 May 2021 for the procurements from the online trade platforms;

- establishing the quotas of excise duties for the 2021-2023 years and so they will propose the annual growth for the tobacco products  by 15 per cent, alcoholic drinks -  by 5 per cent and oil products – by 9 per cent.

- establishing the mechanism of subsidizing the creation of jobs, through subsidizing the salaries in the case of employing young people, citizens from abroad and people with disabilities – the sum of state budget allocations for 2021 for the concerned programme is 200 million lei, etc.

Additionally, the draft law contains also proposals meant to strengthen the financial and decision-making autonomy of the local authorities through: cancelling the 15-per cent cut at the payment of the tax on real estate; giving the local authorities from rural settlements right to independently establish the quota of the tax on real estate within the limits from 0.05 per cent up to 0.4 per cent; giving competences to establish special local taxes for the providing of local public services, others than the ones provided for in the Fiscal Code, in the size and way set by the local public authorities.   

The draft law envisages also salary policy measures proposed for 2021, especially of raising the specific increase for the medical staff by 30 per cent.

Prime Minister Ion Chicu thanked those who worked to elaborate this draft. ‘’I want to thank everybody for participation in the consultative process, especially the colleagues from the Finance Ministry. I hope that, in the current form and the concerned format, the draft shows the business environment’s expectations. Maybe we wanted more exemptions and advantages for entrepreneurs; yet, proceeding from the present complicated situation, we have what we have,’’ the PM added.