Gagauz region to lose out on millions of lei in VAT refunds
More fairness and equity in public finances. This was the message of the chairman of the Parliament's Economic Committee, Radu Marian, during public discussions with representatives of the People's Assembly in Comrat on the law on VAT refunds. However, regional representatives argue that this idea is politically motivated.
"This bill does not aim to punish or come up with such things. We simply want to have more equity in what fiscal administration means in the Republic of Moldova," said Radu Marian, chairman of the parliamentary committee on economy, budget and finance.
Representatives of the People's Assembly stated that the measures proposed by the authors of the project are not thought out to the end. They invoked the fact that social programs are not implemented in the country's districts in the same way as in autonomy. Thus, the budget of the autonomy could not cover all the expenses proposed for a budget year.
"Gagauziya has more specific expenses, in the context of an ethnic autonomy, which, by definition, are higher than those of the country's district budgets, and these must be financed from the account of own revenues," said regional representative Alexandr Tarnavschii.
"The idea sounds very good. From a political point of view, saving 100-150 million and increasing the revenues of the budget of the Republic of Moldova is a good political dividend. With this idea, you want to transfer the refund from the republican budget to the regional one," said another local representative, Serghei Cimpoeş.
"VAT refunds will be made within the limits of VAT collections in the Gagauz Region. If there is a need for more refunds, this will be done from the state budget and this is what is written in the bill," Radu Marian underlined.
According to Parliament, following an analysis, it was found that the amounts of VAT refunded from the state budget are constantly increasing. Only in the last five years, over 640 million lei in VAT have been refunded to the autonomy. The authors of the initiative announced that following the public discussions, the project is to be prepared for the second reading, and the law is to come into force on 1 October 2023.
