Chisinau, December 14 (Infotag). The Moldovan Association of Small Businesses is categorically against imposition of fines on individual enterprises for their non-paying taxes to the Social Fund even if such entities did not operate during the period of time in question.

The Association leaders convened a news conference in Infotag today to present their vision of this burning one and other problems faced by that sector of the national economy. In particular, the Association is insisting that small family enterprises and the like individual entities, in case of their inefficiency, should be given the right to pay to the Social Fund voluntarily.

In particular, they presume that permissions to get voluntarily registered as VAT payers should be given to small and medium-size entities having an annual turnover of under 200,000 lei. Besides this, the Association says it is necessary to permit the closure of individual enterprises and peasant farms, non-functioning for 3 years, in a simplified way and with annulment of pays and penalties to the Social Fund.

Association Chairman Eugen Roscovan said all those demands stem from the complicated situation many individual enterprises have been in. He explained, there are nearly 60 thousand individual enterprises registered in this republic, but only 10 percent of them submit financial statements as such. Of these 10% survivors, only each third one indicates their being efficient. However, all of the registered entities must, by law, regularly pay taxes to the Social Fund, plus fines if they are late with the payments, no matter you work or you are a bankrupt.

“In such conditions, it is the Social Fund who must pay to the socially vulnerable unemployed private entrepreneurs, not vice versa. In Moldova, however, small businesses are regarded only as an extra source of income for corrupt, greedy state bureaucrats who skillfully intimidate private entrepreneurs into paying bribes to them. In such a situation, it is not surprising that instead of protecting small businesses as a basis for our transition-period economy, the State is deliberately blockading the development of this economy sector”, stated Roscovan.