Timely filing of accounting reports is not only a responsibility but also a legal obligation for companies. Delays or omissions in submitting these types of reports to the authorities can attract fines that vary from several hundred to several thousand lei, according to Romanian legislation. Beyond sanctions, non-compliance with tax or accounting obligations can also generate reputational risks, and sometimes they can even be seen as red flags, which draw the attention of the tax authorities to the respective companies.

The accounting law provides several ranges of pecuniary sanctions aimed at non-compliance with the legal deadline for submitting half-yearly accounting reports. The value of the fines varies depending on the period of delay, this being calculated in working days (attention, not calendar days!). For 2023, the deadlines run from August 17, given that August 16 was the last day for submitting these reports within the legal deadline.

If the reports are submitted with a delay of up to 15 working days from the legal deadline, the applied fine can be between 300 and 1,000 lei. For delays of 16-30 working days, the fine can vary from 1,000 to 3,000 lei, and if the delay exceeds 30 working days, the fine starts from 1,500 lei and can reach up to 4,500 lei.

The good news for companies is that, starting in 2022, company law has been amended so that there is no longer any risk of dissolution for failure to submit financial statements and mandatory accounting reports.

Until November 2022, the Companies Law established that, at the request of any interested person, including ANAF, the Ministry of Finance or the Trade Register, the court can order the dissolution of a company, if it has not submitted its annual financial statements or accounting reports by the legal deadline, and the delay exceeds 60 working days.

As of November 26, 2022, the provision has been removed, so that firms now only risk the fines provided for in the previously detailed Accounting Law, not this additional and particularly serious sanction of termination.

How do companies know whether or not they need to submit half-yearly accounting reports

According to MF Order no. 2195/2023, which approved the half-yearly accounting reporting system for this year, reports on June 30, 2023 are mandatory for all economic operators who recorded, in the previous financial year, a net turnover of more than one million euros, regardless of whether it applies the general accounting regulations or IFRS.

The reporting obligation for entities that have exceeded this ceiling is applicable both to companies whose financial year is the calendar year, and to companies whose financial year is different from the calendar year.
To determine the ceiling of one million euros, the exchange rate is the one used at the end of the previous financial year, namely 1 euro = 4.9474 lei, and the inclusion in this ceiling is done based on the indicators determined from the annual financial statements of the financial year 2022.

Thus, if in the trial balance concluded at the end of the financial year 2022, the resulting turnover exceeds the value of 4,947,400 lei, companies must prepare and submit half-yearly accounting reports.

Companies that have not carried out any activity from the time of establishment until June 30, 2023, were temporarily inactive in the first semester of 2023, were established during 2023 or are in the process of liquidation.

The half-yearly accounting reports include three categories of forms (1. Statement of assets, liabilities and equity, 2. Profit and loss account or Statement of income and expenses and 3. Informative data), which are submitted exclusively in electronic format, on the e-portal Guvernare.ro, signed with a qualified digital certificate.

Article published in TaxMagazine