The Romanian Government plans to install ATMs in fiscal administration offices and allow tax payments by card in the offices, with an emergency ordinance in this respect scheduled in ten days, said Finance Minister Ioana Petrescu.

She attended a conference together with Prime Minister Victor Ponta, marking the launch of an online system for individuals to keep in touch with the fiscal administration agency ANAF.  This system, which was so far only available for companies, for a certain fee, was extended to individual tax payers, who will be able to submit their tax declarations online, for free. Until the end of 2014, the system will be available only for Bucharest and Ilfov. Next year, it will be enforced across Romania.

The application is called ‘the virtual private space’ and its use is still optional. Tax payers can still send the hard copy versions of their fiscal declarations. For the time being however, only the feature allowing tax payers to check the amounts due, and not yet submit documents online. However, this is still an improvement, as tax payers had to wait for ANAF to send the document listing their due taxes by post, and often the papers got lost.

Individuals who are registered for business and who use a fiscal code to identify themselves in the system will need, just like companies have so far, a qualified digital certificate. The rest of individuals will be able to login into the system either with such a certificate, or with a user and a password, plus unique codes.

To register in the application, go here (in Romanian). 

Terms and conditions for the application (in Romanian) are here. 

editor@romania-insider.com