Adrian-Felician Cozma: "The supertaxation of stock market transactions will not be good for the economy”

The measures negotiated and approved at the Cotroceni Palace have not yet passed through the leaderships of the parties that will form the future government, but it is certain that not all liberals agree with the supertaxation of stock market transactions, as MP Adrian-Felician Cozma, vice president of the PNL, told us.

Adrian-Felician Cozma told us: "In the National Bureau of the PNL, we did not discuss these measures. In principle, I do not agree with new taxes or with the increase in taxes, that is, I do not agree with the increase in the tax on gains from stock market transactions or the tax on banking transactions. In the latter case, bank commissions are already quite high, and the limitation of cash payments makes us unique in Europe, in terms of the drastic ceilings - 5,000 lei for legal entities and 10,000 lei for individuals, when the European average is 15,000 euros daily and there are four states on the continent that have no limit for cash payments. In terms of this example, I am even thinking about relaxing cash payments. And, in my opinion, overtaxing stock market transactions will not be good for the economy. I reiterate, however, that nothing is clear now, because we in the National Bureau have not approved any set of measures. But, in my opinion, overtaxing "stock market transactions and the introduction of a tax on banking transactions are two inopportune measures."

The parliamentarian believes that first the state budget expenditures should be reduced, such as, for example, reducing the compensation of the boards of directors of state-owned companies.

Adrian Cozma stated: "I'll give you an example: at Eximbank, the allowance for a member of the board of directors is 7,500 euros and there are about 13 members. Well, wouldn't five members be enough, with an allowance of 3,000 or 4,000 lei, since they have one meeting per month? That seems like a common sense measure to me. You can't give a meeting allowance higher than the monthly salary of the President of Romania. This is where we need to start and this world wants to see. We are talking about two important topics: cutting expenses and perks, and continuing the fight against corruption. Unfortunately, there was no discussion about this at all, although we saw that the PSD wants the Ministry of Justice, but we haven't seen any vision from the Social Democrats about the fight against corruption. We haven't seen any PSD measure in recent years to re-credibly improve the justice system. Before imposing new taxes on people, we first need to deal with these things. We need to "We first cut from the budget and then we see what is needed, if we need to supplement with other taxes and duties. Only in this way will citizens understand the introduction of new fiscal measures. The world will not understand them if we start with taxes and the sinecures remain."

The PNL vice-president also referred to tax evasion, acknowledging that there are big problems in combating it.

Mr. Cozma said: "For example, for six years at the border crossing point in Halmeu, Satu Mare County, the vehicle scanner did not work. Although they bought it and it was new, it was not put into operation for six years. Under these conditions, how do you combat tax evasion? In the Port of Constanta until last year, only one out of ten containers passed through the scanner. In Satu Mare, the County Emergency Hospital records a debt of 18 million euros due to poor management caused by representatives of the UDMR. Who is responsible for this? Is there something else? A week ago, four airports in the country received almost half a billion lei from the state budget? 55 million lei at Satu Mare airport, 65 million lei at Baia Mare airport, 100 million lei at Târgu Mureş airport and 250 million lei at Craiova airport. Because they were unable to complete their projects financed from the funds European Union in the period 2014-2020 (+3), that is, until December 31, 2023”.

The PNL representative concluded by pointing out that in the case of the above-mentioned airports, practically all the expenditure that was made after December 31, 2023 was borne by the local authorities, instead of the projects being completed on time and the money being taken from the European funds.