Top debtor companies at public pensions budget at the end of March
A number of 82,448 small and medium sized companies and 186 large companies are registered with arrears to the public pensions' budget of Romania, according to data recently published by the Ministry of Finance. Their arrears spread from a few hundred euros to several hundred million euros, with the biggest debtors being large state-owned companies, black holes of the economy.
According to Romanian legislation, a large company has annual turnover of over RON 75 million (EUR 20 million), and companies are considered small or medium sized below that threshold. The biggest ten debtors to the public pensions budget of Romania are registered with total arrears of over EUR 638 million, meaning unpaid social contributions and other penalties. The biggest debtor is mining company CNH Petrosani, with EUR 398 million, followed by mining/metal company CN Remin (EUR 93 million) and also mining company SNC (EUR 40 million.). The data is as presented by the Ministry of Finance for the end of March 2008.
Fiscal indiscipline affects not only the public pensions budget (1st pillar), but also the private pensions system - the 2nd pillar of mandatory private pensions, which is fueled by social contributions diverted from the 1st pillar. After the start of collection in the 2nd pillar in May 2008, statistics presented by the authorities showed that fiscal indiscipline and poor tax compliancy (in paying/declaring contributions) are responsible for most of the one million dead/empty accounts in the second pillar (23.1% of total participants in the system).
Basically, participants with empty accounts in the 2nd pillar are employed by companies which have either not paid or not declared correctly their social security contributions in the 1st pillar. Authorities expect tax compliancy and fiscal discipline to slightly improve after the implementation of the 2nd pillar, due to social pressure by the participants.
05.07.2008
