Romanian exporters lost the possibility to reimburse VAT without prior fiscal checks starting January 2008. The special VAT reimbursement procedure, applied starting May 2007, was annulled through an Economy Ministry order late last year. That has led to longer periods of waiting for VAT reimbursement and exporters say the legislative change has generated a financial block for exporting companies and manufacturers that work for them.
According to the Association of Importers and Exporters in Romania, exporters have to recover some 500 million euro from the Finance Ministry on a monthly basis.
For a period of seven months last year, they received their VAT reimbursements immediately, without prior fiscal checks. Under the new regulation, the VAT reimbursement is done in five months, despite law provides for a period of only 45 days.
Companies can receive interest of 0.1% daily for each day the state postpones the VAT payments.
