Dragoş Mesaroş, Goldring: ”Dividend tax increase will not affect long-term investors too much”

The increase in dividend tax, from 10%, as it is now, to 16%, as it will be from the beginning of next year, will not have too much of an impact on long-term investors, believes Dragoş Mesaroş, trading director of financial brokerage company Goldring.

The broker told us: "I think that the measures being taken are making foreign investors regain their trust in a state that is trying to bring its budget back to normal. We need to regain trust in the Romanian economy, which has been a mess for the last five years. I believe that the measures are correct and expected by the private sector, investors, and foreign markets. Some fiscal correction measures had to be taken, because we couldn't wait to end up like Greece in 2009 (ed. the moment Greece's sovereign debt crisis began, when the country lost its credibility on international financial markets)."

The measures with a direct impact on the capital market are the increase in the dividend tax and the increase in the bank turnover tax, the broker added. In his opinion, the increase in the dividend tax is not so large as to change investors' perception of the capital market. Regarding the increase in the bank turnover tax, Dragoş Mesaroş believes that it will ultimately be borne by the clients of credit institutions.

"I think that banks could increase interest rates on loans and commissions to cover this tax," the broker told us. Among the measures to reduce our country's budget deficit, which last year amounted to 9.3%, the highest in the European Union, is the increase in the bank turnover tax from 2%, as it is currently, to 4%, starting July 1, 2025. The increase in the dividend tax is to be implemented from January 1, 2026.

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