Preliminary assessment of the second payment request of Romania

evasion The Joint Action Plan between the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) and the Labour Inspection, titled “Joint Action Plan on the organisation of fiscal supervision in cooperation with the Labour Inspectorate” (hereinafter referred to as “the Joint Action Plan”) was signed on 17 February 2022. The signature of the Joint Action Plan certifies its adoption. As stated on page 3 of the Joint Action Plan, it aims to prevent and limit undeclared and under-declared work (that is, it addresses grey/black work evasion) and set up appropriate organisational arrangements through joint control actions and operational exchanges of information and findings.

Subsequent to the cooperation protocol with the Labour Inspection, a joint action plan shall be drawn up to include economic operators with high fiscal risk and also risk from the perspective of using under declared / unreported work The Joint Action Plan was signed on 17 February 2022, thus subsequent to the cooperation protocol with the Labour Inspection (hereinafter referred to as “the cooperation protocol”), which was signed in November 2021. As explained above, the signature of the Joint Action Plan certifies its adoption.

Section 3.1 of the Joint Action Plan includes economic operators with high fiscal risk and also risk from the perspective of using under declared / unreported work. It requires the establishment of a representative sample of taxpayers from a compliance risk perspective, based on risk analyses carried out on available information and data. It also lists criteria for the selection of taxpayers into account. These include, among others, the average number of employees, the number of part-time employees, and the number of employees with minimum wage, which are suitable indicators for under declared/unreported work (that is, a low average number of employees can signal unreported work, while a high number of part-time or minimum wage employees can signal under declared work). Selection criteria also include relevant non-compliance found during previous checks, which can point to a high fiscal risk. Therefore, these criteria constitute indicators for identifying under declared/unreported work.

It shall be broken down by types of seasonal activities, where the incidence of the mentioned risks is known to be high Section 3.1 of the Joint Action Plan lists seasonal activities, where the incidence of the mentioned risks is known to be high. It specifies that, when selecting taxpayers, data and information that will be taken into account will include, among others, activities in construction, hotel, restaurant and catering, vehicle maintenance and repair, and transport. These are activities where the incidence of using under declared / unreported work is known to be high. In addition, the same section states that in order to select for compliance and control activities a sample of taxpayers representative of compliance risk, risk criteria for the selection will include, among others, the economic potential in relation to the possible seasonality of the activity.

Periodically, the management of the structures involved (Tax Antifraud General Directorate and the Labour Inspection) shall analyse the results obtained as well as the possibilities and perspectives for updating the plan, depending on the results found Section 5.1 of the Joint Action Plan establishes a technical working group, composed of the management of the structures involved. It states that activities are centrally coordinated by a technical working group composed of, among others, the Director-General of DGAF (that is, DG Antifraud in ANAF), the Deputy Directors-General of the central structure of DGAF, and the Director of the Labour Relations Control Directorate of the Labour Inspection.

Section 5.2 of the Joint Action Plan specifies that the technical working group shall meet quarterly or whenever necessary at the request of any of its members.

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