The Chamber of Deputies plenary session voted on Tuesday for the bill that provides for the exemption of pensions below 3,000 lei from taxation, with 277 votes „in favor” and 3 abstentions.
The Chamber of Deputies is the decision-making body, so the bill goes for promulgation to President Klaus Iohannis.
The bill adopted by the deputies provides for increasing the threshold for tax-exempt pension incomes from 2,000 lei to 3,000 lei.
PNL Deputy Raluca Turcan stated after the vote that it is "the end of a long and quite challenging journey, which means the completion of the public pension system reform."
"No matter how much political capture attempts the pension reform process, PNL's merit is indisputable. The pension system reform cannot be detached from PNL. On the contrary! PNL initiated and supported each stage separately," Turcan pointed out.
She pointed out that the first step was taken in 2021 when she was the Minister of Labor.
"The recalculation of pensions from 2024 would not have been possible without the decisions made three years ago! Recalculating pensions with pen and paper would have delayed the reform for several years! Also in 2021, I included this reform in the PNRR to ensure that, no matter who the Minister of Labor is, the pension reform is an irreversible process, as well as a firm obligation for the current Government," Turcan said.
She mentioned that she initiated the new pension law and a year later, in 2022, as part of this process, she proposed this legislative project to increase the tax threshold for pensions from 2,000 to 3,000 lei.
USR: The law presents serious question marks
USR accused the Government of "gross incompetence and lack of interest in pensioners."
"The PSD-PNL law that raises the threshold for taxing pensions from 2,000 to 3,000 lei raises serious questions regarding its constitutionality. Ciolacu and Ciucă prove to be amateurs playing with the nerves of pensioners.
The law submitted today, in a rush, to the vote of the Chamber of Deputies only amends para. (1) of art. 100 of the Fiscal Code, as shown by the title of the law (Draft Law for amending para. (1) of art. 100 of Law no. 227/2015 regarding the Fiscal Code).
When they realized that the 2,000 lei threshold is also specified in other articles of the Fiscal Code - para. (2) of art. 101 - thus making the law inapplicable, PSD and PNL further amended the bill with a change that was not debated in committees. In the end, the bill that was supposed to amend a single article of the Fiscal Code will amend two, despite its title and the fact that the amendment of art. 101 was not subject to debate in the Senate," USR explained.