Romanians are subject to one of the harshest tax regimes in Europe and the world, according to international statistics made by prominent global organisations. A dimension of this pressure is given by just one indicator: budget spending. This exceeds 40 pc of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which means that the state consumes almost five months of Romanians’ work, according to the Independent Center for Studies in Economics and Law (CISED), the main promoter of the ‘Day of fiscal freedom’ – an information campaign held in Bucharest yesterday, in partnership with the Romanian-American University, reads the Adevarul newspaper.
On the other hand, the number of days we work for the state has significantly increased these years. In 2006, Romanians worked 129 days for the state, but the number increased to 137 in 2009, 147 last year and 149 in 2011. The evolution was driven by the continuous increase of the budget spending and the economic contraction of the last two years, believe the economic experts of CISED. The biggest problem is that authorities do not use these resources for economic investments, tax incentives and other stimulants for the business environment, and waste them instead, believe the aforementioned economists, who expect to see increased public spending in the coming years, especially on electoral purposes. As a consequence, the number of days we work exclusively for the state will increase, warn the experts.
