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Over 70% Of Romania’s Wine Production Isn’t Taxed – Winemakers

Over 70% of Romania’s annual wine production, or about 4 million hectoliters, isn’t taxed and goes to the black market and winemakers’ own consumption, Ovidiu Gheorghe, general manager of Romania’s winemakers association, told a news conference Monday.
Over 70% Of Romania’s Wine Production Isn’t Taxed - Winemakers
22 mart. 2010, 13:52, English

„Romania’s annual wine output is of 5.5 million hectoliters, but taxes are paid for only 1.5 million hectoliters. The rest is self-consumption and the black market,” Gheorghe said.

He said the Government should only exempt individual winemakers from taxation for a maximum 20 hectoliters of wine, and people making 20 to 1,000 hectoliters should be taxed.

„Small producers should pay taxes for what they sell,” Gheorghe said, adding Romania loses an annual EUR100 million because of black market wine.

He also said another problem with Romania’s wine market is that it makes mostly (60% of the total output) white wine, while the European market generally demands red wine.

Gheorghe suggested the Government should give financial incentives to encourage winemakers to work in associations, rather than individually, to help solve the issue of excessive fragmentation of farmland.

The winemakers’ association also proposes the drafting of a normative act regulating currency exchange rate differences for beneficiaries of projects co-funded with European funds and the amendment of the country’s National Rural Development Plan (PNDR), to ease the submission of projects.