The Minister of Finance, Adrian Câciu, assures that OMV Petrom will pay the solidarity tax by June 25, as provided for by the legal deadline in the legislation for the profit tax. He denied, on Sunday evening on the Prima News television station, that the government did not want to tax the company from Energy. Also, Câciu said that, although he talks “in general” with the Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu, he did not talk about this topic with him.
“I stand by what I said, (OMV – ed.) will pay. Wait for June. What people forget is that this tax is declared on June 25 and paid on June 25. Before, he cannot pay, even if he wanted to, because this is the legal term for the profit tax”, said Adrian Câciu.
The Minister of Finance stated that there will be further discussions with the European executive, so that things are even clearer.
“The commission understood all the loopholes in the regulation, I also said that it should come back with a clarification to the regulation”, he declared.
Asked if the Black Sea Oil & Gas company also falls within the regulations for paying the tax, the Government official confirmed this.
“This regulation did not go to the finance minister or to the finance ministers of the member states. One thing must be understood, the regulation was made there (at the energy ministers – editor’s note), not at finance”, said the minister, pointing out that it would have been correct to go to ECOFIN as well.
Asked if he spoke with the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu, Adrian Câciu answered: “We have a dialogue in general. We did not have a dialogue on this topic, on the solidarity contribution. I can’t turn back time. We are in a date. I can’t turn back time. Maybe it would have been good to pull each other by the sleeve, but at the moment I can only say that it didn’t happen that way”.
Regarding the speculations that OMV was not wanted to pay this tax, the minister replied: “Totally false, I categorically reject it as finance minister, and so did the prime minister. This ordinance was assumed at the level of the entire coalition, it was approved by the Minister of Energy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. I categorically reject any kind of intention to suggest that it was done here, that some work was done. You have in front of you the man who took a billion euros from these companies, I am one of those who, in the coalition and the government, fought for the overtaxation of these companies”.
Adrian Câciu said that the revenues that the state estimates from the solidarity tax reach “3.9 billion lei, in total”, while 15 billion were collected from overtaxation.
PNL blamed PSD for the scandal caused by the non-payment of the solidarity tax by OMV Petrom. Liberals thus believe that the Ministry of Finance, under the control of PSD, is “the responsible institution that must present solutions in this case”.
Editor :
A.C.
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