PACT Foundation together with colleague NGOs drafted and signed an open letter meant to trigger an alarm signal to the Government and National Agency of Fiscal Administration, considering the lack of transparency, unity and coherence in the application of the 2% Mechanism. This mechanism is designed to permit tax payers to direct 2% of their previous year income tax and is enacted by article 57 in the Fiscal Code.
The initiative was triggered after finding out about practices hindering the application of this mechanism, such as:
1. The Local Public Finance Administration bureaus refusal to register 230 forms in which the organisation name and bank account are preprinted. ANAF sources later admitted that tax payers that filled in such preprinted forms shall be contacted for confirmations, thus spending extra Government money.
2. The Local Public Finance Administration bureaus requesting that tax payers should hand in their forms in person, thus, making a confusion between the legal requirement of "direct" hand in and personal hand in.
We mention that these practices were put into action during the process of gathering 230 forms, without having been publicly discussed or agreed upon beforehand.
PACT Foundation and 65 other NGOs have already signed the open letter requesting that the 2% mechanism should be respected as enacted by the Fiscal Code and that all practices mentioned above should be immediately removed by public announcement and inter-institutional communication.
The signers also reject any undertaking that affects the transparency of the process by which 230 forms are received and processed, by means of inter-institutional communication that are not made public in time, and request that a unitary, transparent and coherent system be put in place for all tax payers that shall desire to make use of their lawful right.
The 2% mechanism was born out of a common project of civil society and the political environment in 2003.This mechanism is widely applied in Eastern and Central Europe, where NGOs frequently substitute for state intervention in sustaining the needs of various beneficiaries.
In Romania, the 2% mechanism is already constituted as a good practice that enables citizens to directly contribute to the decision related to the way their taxes are spent. It is not just a mechanism of financial support for NGOs, but also a very efficient method for citizens to become responsible towards the problems in their community.
If you want to support our initiative, please contact us at office@fundatiapact.ro
