The legislation that allows antifraud inspectors to close down shops and restaurants is very harsh and should be modified so that the punishment reflects the seriousness of the offence, said Dragos Petrescu, the owner of the City Grill restaurant group and president of the Romanian Restaurants’ Association.

He said that the Association has started discussions with the antifraud direction DGAF and the Ministry of Finance to modify the rules.

“Nowadays, the fiscal authority ANAF is compelled to suspend a unit’s activity for at least 30 days if the inspectors find a difference of RON 10-15 (EUR 2.25-3.4) between the cash in the register and the fiscal receipts issued. We want this maximum difference to become a percentage of the restaurant’s turnover. We also want the suspension period below 20 days,” Petrescu said.

He added that current regulations can severely impact local businesses and that business owners have no way of defending themselves to fiscal inspectors, other than going to court, but only after their business is shut down.

However, he admitted that the increasing activity of the tax inspectors has increased fiscal conformity.

editor@romania-insider.com