The State Tax Service will be set up starting from 1 April by the reorganization of the State Principal Tax Inspectorate (IFPS) and absorption of the territorial state tax inspectorates, IFPS director Sergiu Puscuta said at a news conference today. He described the reform “as the most important event which marks the work of the State Tax Service in 2017.”

“The present structure of the Tax Service has been inherited ever since 1990, when the Tax Service was organized according to the territorial principle,” Puscuta noted. The official also said that this territorial approach had some advantages, as well as a string of disadvantages, which have become more and more obvious in the last time, when the economic activity becomes more and more diverse, transnational and cross-border, when electronic services are developed, which impose changes, including in the work of the Tax Service.

In the situation when there are 35 territorial inspectorates, the Tax Service often faces the non-univocal treatment of the legislation. “We have considerable reserves, especially towards the activity of control carried out by the inspectorates. They are in charge of carrying out controls only at the economic agents working on these areas,” Puscuta said. He specified that the vacant posts also represent a problem; 177 out of 1,892 staff units are vacant, most in districts.

Beginning with 1 April 2017, the 35 territorial state tax inspectorates and the State Principal Tax Inspectorate merge and a single legal entity will be set up – the Tax Service, “which will have the power of administration on all the territory of Moldova.” Four departments of territorial tax administration are to be created: Centre, South, North, Chisinau. The number of employees will stay the same – 1,892 units. At the same time, 85 leadership offices are to be liquidated.

According to the amendments, the State Tax Service will be led by a director, who will be assisted by four deputy directors. The post of director will be held by contest and the appointment will be made by the finance minister for a five-year term.

Sergiu Puscuta said that the state tax information system is to be reorganized. “It is cheaper to maintain one information system than a central one and 35 local systems,” the IFPS head said.

The goals of the reorganization are the enhancement in the degree of voluntary compliance of tax payers, providing of qualitative services, cutting the costs of administration and strengthening actions to fight the tax dodging. In the case of tax controls, they will no longer be limited territorially, but will be oriented, in particular, to the regions or fields with a higher risk of tax dodging. The delegation of tax employees will be made via information technologies absolutely aleatorily, in order to reduce the level of corruption.

The director of the State Principal Tax Inspectorate also said that, at the territorial level of the district, the powers of providing services to tax payers would be maintained; the other two duties – the control and supervision of payments, as well as the forcible collection of arrears will be entrusted with the regional departments. As many as 773 employees of all the staff will provide services to tax payers and another 643 ones will deal with controls and payments’ supervision.

“I think that, this year already, we will feel the effects of the tax system’s reorganization,” Sergiu Puscuta added.

By MOLDPRES.