FinMin Citu says IT package gives best return for gov't investment

This whole computerisation package, which started with the connection of the cash registers to the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF), means at least two percentage points of additional revenue to the national budget and is the best return for a state investment ever made, Minister of Public Finance Florin Citu said on Thursday.

"Connecting cash registers is part of the big computerisation project, it's the first step. Next comes the electronic file the companies will use to send electronic information to ANAF and this year e-billing. This whole package means at least two percentage points of additional government revenue. If we look at today's GDP, 20 billion lei of that come from this computerisation alone. It is the best return on a government investment ever made," Citu told Digi 24 private broadcaster.

According to the minister, connecting cash registers to ANAF software means fewer controls at companies and everything will be much more transparent.

The big taxpayers will connect their cash registers with electronic books to the ANAF servers within three months starting on July 1 and until September 30, 2020, while business operators in the category of medium and small taxpayers will complete the connection process by January 31, 2021, according to a press statement of the Ministry of Public Finance (MFP) released on Wednesday.

According to MFP, by September 31, 2020, about 50,000 terminals installed by large companies will be connected to ANAF servers, and at the end of January, real-time data will be collected from a total of about 550,000 cash registers.

This system will allow the recognition of some patterns and will signal the dysfunctional or atypical ones. The interface used by ANAF inspectors will allow the filtering of data by several types of data: CAEN code type product / service, CUI, headquarters, address and others.

The ministry also says that the software platform was donated to the Ministry of Public Finance by the Association for Advanced Technologies.