President Nicușor Dan stated on Tuesday that we have a problem with large-scale tax evasion and that it is necessary for institutions, including the Secret Services, to address this issue.
He specified that there are discussions on whether it is necessary to modify the National Defense Strategy in this regard.
Nicușor Dan was asked if he will hire IT specialists to investigate what happened during the 2024 presidential elections, as he stated during the electoral campaign, for a discussion in the Supreme Council of National Defense.
''This is not the top priority right now. The priorities are the deficit and the Government. Right after. I am very interested in this subject. What did I say? I said that we have a major issue related to the deficit due to large-scale tax evasion and it is necessary for institutions, including the Services, to address this problem and there is a discussion on whether we need to modify the National Defense Strategy in this regard,'' stated Nicușor Dan, cited by Agerpres.
On Monday, President Nicușor Dan stated that the effects of combating large-scale tax evasion will be visible next year, with efforts being made in this direction.
''Regarding large-scale tax evasion, I had a discussion with the interim Prime Minister, Mr. Predoiu, last night, and he said he is checking whether we need to make a modification in the National Defense Strategy to focus more state forces on combating this phenomenon,'' stated Nicușor Dan at a press conference held in Vilnius.
He referred to the potential effects of combating tax evasion.
''We are now in a situation where we need to convey to the financial market, investors some measures for the second half of 2025. Combating large-scale tax evasion - I am optimistic we will do it, but its effects will be visible in 2026,'' stated the president.
According to official sources, the Supreme Council of National Defense will be convened in June to include the combat against large-scale tax evasion in the National Defense Strategy.
Collaboration between SRI and ANAF was initiated in 2012
This would not be the first time that SRI collaborates with ANAF. SRI signed a collaboration protocol with the Tax Office in 2012, during the Ponta Government, under which a number of intelligence service analysts were detached to the central structure of ANAF, as Biziday recalls.
As later reported by Eduard Hellvig, the head of SRI at that time, their purpose was not to spy or assist with information for control structures, but to develop a strategy to identify companies at risk of evasion and to modify the control methods so that they could no longer be warned in advance.
In March 2017, the Grindeanu Government requested SRI to withdraw its specialists from ANAF, even though the institution's performance had significantly improved between 2012 and 2017.
In its 2017 report, ANAF announced "the best revenue collection for the state budget in the institution's history," with a VAT collection share of 37% of the state's revenues. In 2024, the VAT share was below 20% of the total state budget revenues.