The National Fiscal Administration Agency has published on its website the new nominal lists of large and medium taxpayers, valid from July 1. Changing the classification of a taxpayer can have important effects, so we recommend all companies to check whether they appear on the new classifications published by ANAF, because both large and medium-sized taxpayers have specific tax obligations deriving from this quality, the most important among them being the submission of SAF-T reports and the mandatory preparation of the transfer pricing file.

The order updating the list of large taxpayers, respectively the list of medium taxpayers, was published on the ANAF website, in a special section, and it is valid without the need for its publication in the Official Gazette.

According to the new normative act issued by ANAF, the number of large taxpayers is 1,423 as of July 1, down from 2,488 companies that were classified in this category at the beginning of the year. The reduction in the number of large taxpayers was announced as early as March, the Treasury basing its decision on a detailed analysis of the tax activity of large taxpayers, which highlighted the need to adjust their number according to their contribution to budget revenues. The analysis carried out by ANAF showed that a number of 1064 taxpayers, classified at that time as large, actually have a weight of less than 5% in the total budget revenues, so the Tax Office decided to transfer them from the category of large taxpayers to that of middle taxpayers.

On this occasion, ANAF made a general redistribution of taxpayers to categories more appropriate to their size and fiscal impact, so we also have notable changes on the part of medium taxpayers. Even with the move of more than a thousand large companies to the medium-sized category, the number of medium-sized taxpayers fell to 21,026 as of July 1, compared to 20,198 at the beginning of the year, which shows very clearly that this class of medium-sized companies also it was massively restructured.

The new nominal lists of large and medium taxpayers are available here and here, respectively, and taxpayers who are not on either of these two lists are automatically, from July 1, in the category of small taxpayers.

The transfer of companies from one taxpayer category to another operates automatically, through the effect of this order published by ANAF on its website, without the need for any other tax administrative act or any decision of the Tax Office to confirm the inclusion of a company in any of the three levels of size.

For companies that have lost their high-taxpayer status, the reclassification comes as good news because it reduces their administrative burdens and provides them with a more lenient sanction on certain tax obligations.

For example, the move to the category of middle taxpayers has a direct impact on the obligations related to the preparation of the transfer pricing file. While large taxpayers must prepare their transfer pricing file in advance, each year by the date of their annual income tax returns, medium and small companies benefit from a less strict approach in this regard. For these companies, the file must only be presented during tax inspections when ANAF expressly requests it. Companies that receive such requests have between 30 and 60 calendar days to present the document to tax inspectors.

And the significance thresholds that compel the preparation of transfer pricing files are different for large taxpayers compared to those in the other categories. Thus, large companies have the obligation to prepare their transfer pricing file if they carry out intra-group transactions (i.e. operations with affiliated parties) that exceed any of the thresholds: 200,000 euros, for interest received or paid related to financial services, 250,000 euros, for operations related to services rendered or received, 350,000 euros, for operations related to the purchase or sale of tangible or intangible assets.

In the case of small or medium-sized companies, the value of transactions with related parties must be greater than or equal to one of the following limits: 50,000 euros, in the case of interests, 50,000 euros, in the case of services, 100,000 euros, in the case of transactions with tangible goods and/ or intangibles.

In the area of ​​tax burdens that are applied differently depending on the size of the company, it is also worth mentioning the SAF-T reports, which are currently only mandatory for large and medium-sized taxpayers, small companies being obliged to submit them only starting next year. It is important to note, however, that if a company in the medium or large category has been reclassified in the meantime in the small taxpayer category, it will continue with the submission of SAF-T reports.

Beyond these specific tax obligations, the regime of sanctions can also be differentiated according to the size of the taxpayer, so that falling into a certain category can bring companies lower or higher fines for the same violations of the legislation. This is the case of e-Invoice fines, for example, where we have a sanctioning regime based on three value thresholds, differentiated according to the size of the companies: large ones that do not respect the deadlines for reporting payment documents in e-Invoice risk fines from 5,000 to 10,000 lei, for medium ones, fines start from 2,500 lei and can reach 5,000 lei, and for small ones, the fine range is between 1,000 and 2,500 lei.

Similarly, the new e-TVA system, which also entered into force on July 1, provides for non-compliance with the rules that apply to it the same penalty thresholds valid for e-Invoice, with the important emphasis that, in the case of e-TVA, the fines will only apply from January 1, 2025.

Article published in Tax Magazine