The Emergency Ordinance no. 138/2024 | TaxFlash 115


In the Official Gazette Part I no. 1222 of 05 December 2024 was published the Emergency Ordinance no. 138/2024 regarding the modification and completion of some normative acts in the fiscal-budgetary field, as well as for the regulation of some measures, as follows:

1)    Ro e-Invoice
  • Starting from January 1st, 2025, invoices issued for operations carried out under public procurement contracts must mandatorily include the corresponding CPV codes, as listed in the reference nomenclature for public procurement.
  • In B2B commercial relations, between taxable persons established in Romania, for the delivery of goods and provision of services that do NOT have the place of delivery/provision in Romania, the issuer of the electronic invoice will NO longer be required to send it to the recipient using the national system for electronic invoices, RO e-Factura, starting from January 1st, 2025.
  • Starting from January 1st, 2025, simplified invoices must be transmitted through the RO e-Factura system for both B2B and B2C relations (until now, these were exempted).
  • Exempt from transmission through the RO e-Factura system are fiscal receipts (which are considered simplified invoices), as well as invoices issued for intra-community delivery of goods, where the recipient, a taxable person established in Romania, provides a VAT registration number from another EU member state. In this context, it is important to note that changes are also being made to simplified invoices, which, starting from January 1st, 2025, must include, in addition to the currently mandatory information, the VAT code or the fiscal identification code of the beneficiary.
  • Regarding the transmission of invoices in the RO e-Factura system for B2C relations, including the personal identification number (CNP) of individual customers in the invoices is optional. If the beneficiary, an individual, is not identified by any fiscal identification code, the invoices will be issued using a code made of 13 zeros instead of the beneficiary's fiscal identification code. 
It is worth mentioning that although the obligation to transmit B2C invoices will be mandatory starting from January 1st, 2025, non-compliance with this obligation will be considered a contravention and subject to sanctions starting from July 1, 2025.

2)    Pre-filled VAT return RO e-TVA
  • The obligation for taxpayers to submit the results of checks carried out on the discrepancies communicated through the "RO e-TVA Compliance Notification" is postponed until July 1st, 2025. Therefore, until this date, no sanctions will be applied to taxpayers who do not respond to the RO e-TVA compliance notifications.
3)    Other changes regarding VAT and RO e-Transport
  • As an exception, for the specified users who have the status of authorized economic operators, sanctions will apply starting March 31st, 2025, for actions committed and detected from this date onward (the previous deadline was January 1st, 2025).
4)    Amendments to the Tax Code

a.    Minimum tax
  • Are tax exempted from the minimum tax the taxpayers who owe supplementary tax for credit institutions - Romanian legal entities and branches in Romania of credit institutions - foreign legal entities, respectively supplementary tax for legal entities performing activities in the oil and gas sectors, during the period of application of these provisions;
b.    VAT
  • Taxable persons who make purchases for which VAT has been deducted, in order to carry out investment projects within public or social interest programs funded from public funds, and which, after reception, are transferred free of charge to the beneficiary of the investment project based on a protocol, must issue a self-invoice.
c.    Personal income tax
  • The method of declaring and paying the taxes for certain income from rental activities, other than income from the leasing of agricultural assets and the rental of rooms in privately owned homes for tourism purposes, paid by legal entities or other entities required to maintain accounting records, is clarified. Thus, for rental income related a to a period after 1 January 2024 which was paid in advance on or prior to 31 December 2023, as well as for rental income paid exclusively in kind and for guarantees used to cover the rent established by contract, the obligation to determine the annual net income, calculate, declare, and pay the tax lie with the owner, usufructuary, or another legal holder. These obligations are fulfilled by submitting the Unique Declaration regarding income tax and social contributions owed by individuals, by May 25th, inclusive of the year following the one when the income was obtained.
  • For the above-mentioned income, income payers are required to submit to the tax authority the Declaration on the calculation and withholding of tax for each income beneficiary (Form 205).
  • Regarding the income from the transfer of immovable property, the following clarifications are brought:
    • The non-taxation of income obtained by individuals from the transfer of actual possession recorded, in accordance with the law, in the land register through acts for cause of death.
    • The non-taxation at the time of recording actual possession in the land register during the systematic or sporadic registration process and subsequent registration of ownership rights as an effect of recording actual possession, under the conditions of Articles 13 and 41 of Law No. 7/1996 regarding Land Registry and Real Estate Publicity, as well as determining the tax on income from other sources upon the subsequent transfer of the actual possession.
    • The tax treatment of transfer of ownership rights under a suspensive condition, authenticated through a notarial deed, as well as in the case of income determined and received after authenticating the notarial deed transferring the ownership rights. It is important to note that, for income from the transfer of ownership rights under a suspensive condition, paid by legal entities or other entities required to maintain accounting records, the obligation to calculate, withhold, declare, and pay the tax for the amounts paid lies with the payers of such income. The tax calculated and withheld by income payers, legal entities, or other entities required to maintain accounting records constitutes a final tax and must be paid to the state budget by the 25th of the month following the month in which it was withheld.
  • Clarifications are brought regarding the tax regime applicable to pension income obtained from abroad, namely, the exemption from progressive taxation and the application of a 10% flat tax rate. To determine the annual tax due on pension income obtained from abroad, taxpayers must calculate the annual taxable income by deducting from the gross annual income the monthly tax-exempt amount of 2,000 lei multiplied by the number of months in the year in which the pension income was earned.
  • For income from privately managed, voluntary, or occupational pension plans, obtained from abroad, the taxable base is represented by the amounts exceeding the participants' net contributions, as evidenced by supporting documents, from which the monthly tax-exempt amount of 2,000 lei multiplied by the number of months in the year in which the pension income was earned is deducted.