Romania’s New Environ Min Eyes To Suspend Car Tax Ordinance

During the suspension period, the pollution tax will be at July’s level, the minister said.

“(…) My opinion is that we should suspend the ordinance as of December and make it (the car tax –e.n.) come back to the level in July, namely to the same parameters,” Nemirschi said.

He said the information he has from former Environment Minister Attila Korodi, who did not sign the ordinance issued in December, shows that the Tariceanu Government did not discuss the Ordinance seriously, as neither the European Union nor those interested, employers and producers, were consulted.

After the ordinance is suspended, the government will shortly come up with adjustments, “all connected to the financial influences it will have upon the programs for which this tax represented a sources”.

The Executive decided in April to introduce the pollution tax for cars, calculated after the technical data of each car, based on carbon dioxide emissions, which replaced as of July 1, 2008, the tax for the first registration of cars which was then effective.

Amendments to the car tax brought a fall in the number of new cars, and boosted the import of the used cars.

On the backdrop of the increase in the number of imported second-hand cars, the government decided via an emergency ordinance in December to triple the car tax for used cars, and to suspend it for new cars with Euro4 engines of up to 2,000 cubic centimeters, registered or the first time in Romania and the European Union.