Forța Fermierilor management reminds that the Parliament recently amended the law on the VAT refund program for agricultural producers at the insistent request of farmers. The stated purpose of the amendments is to mitigate the effects of the recent price increases by promptly refunding VAT amounts accumulated in farmers’ accounts. And this is in a situation when many farmers in the spring agricultural season do not sell their products – they have run out – but buy resources, the prices for which have risen sharply. The government widely mediatized this measure and announced the allocation of 200 million lei for its implementation.
In practice, territorial tax authorities refuse to accept VAT refund requests from farmers who “…have no sales.” According to the amendments, farmers are entitled to a refund of 40% of the VAT on the account, but not more than 12% of the value of sales of agricultural products at a VAT rate of 8%.
“The 12% norm was introduced to limit budget expenditures in case of mass sales of agricultural products by farmers. However, the tax authorities and the Ministry of Finance resorted to an absurd interpretation, which first of all hit hard the most disadvantaged farmers, who had long ago sold all agricultural products and now incur huge expenses for purchasing inputs. Therefore, the amendments to the law on the VAT refund program for agricultural producers have so far had the opposite effect to what was expected,” Forța Fermierilor said in its message.
Forța Fermierilor urges the Ministry of Finance to amend the Regulation on VAT refunds for agricultural producers to exclude such absurd interpretation. The organization also considers the urgent intervention of the Parliament “to interpret the relevant law in case the Ministry of Finance refuses to amend the relevant Regulation” to be necessary.
