Almost EUR 1 billion have been removed from Romania in the last five years through transfer prices, an amount that could have been used to carry out several local projects, said Ionut Misa, general director of the Large Taxpayers Department.

Transfer prices are the amounts charged by foreign companies to local subsidiaries for the goods and services sold to them. Transfer prices are one of the most common ways used by multinationals to extract profits from their subsidiaries without being taxed.

“Only from five companies that are in the fields of oil, retail, tobacco, e-commerce there were adjustments of RON 87 million (EUR 19.3 million). Only five companies, think what means this at national level,” Misa added, reports local Agerpres.

He also said that the Large Taxpayers Department currently has 1,500 companies in its portfolio.

“The amounts are very, very large. A survey that we carried out at the beginning of 2015 on a portfolio of 2,500 companies brought us to the conclusion that almost EUR 1 billion have been taken out from Romania in the last five years. These amounts could have been used to carry out many projects in Romania and could bring big benefits to the Romanians,” Misa said.

He gave the examples of retailers, which leave very little money in Romania, as they offer low salaries and the tax profit is applied only on price differences.

editor@romania-insider.com