The monitoring of road transport will be done through an additional system, which will work in parallel with e-Transport. Although both systems target road transport, they have different purposes and modes of operation: while e-Transport, already operational, is focused on the administration and documentation of road transport, the future e-Sigiliu system will be more oriented towards monitoring transport and preventing diversions.

By Law no. 269/2023, the Government established, starting from November 11, the national RO e-Sigiliu System, intended to ensure the traceability of road transport of goods on the territory of Romania.

The new system, which will work in parallel with e-Transport, will be based on the use of electronic devices and a computer application and will allow authorities to determine potential points of diversion of road transport of goods, regardless of whether they are in transit or if their final destination is an economic operator on the national territory.

Basically, the goods will be monitored in real time, from the place of loading to the place of final unloading, the purpose of the new system being to prevent the sale of goods en route or other illegal practices, such as the sale without an invoice of goods that it should only transit the national territory.

On the other hand, through e-Transport, taxpayers must declare in advance the movement of goods considered to be a fiscal risk, by obtaining a unique code, called the UIT code, which must be entered on the transport documents. The e-Transport includes data on the sender and recipient, the name, characteristics, quantities and value of the transported goods, loading and unloading places, details on the means of transport used and the UIT code of the respective transport.

The application of smart seals and the monitoring of shipments through the new e-Sigiliu system will be carried out by ANAF and the Romanian Customs Authority based on a risk analysis. The detailed procedure for applying the seals and defining the risk criteria will be elaborated later, by the end of this year, through an implementation order issued by ANAF and the Romanian Customs Authority.

In the case of e-Transport, reporting is limited to certain categories of road vehicles: those that have a maximum authorized mass of at least 3.5 tons and that are loaded with high fiscal risk goods with a total gross mass of more than 500 Kg or a total value greater than 10,000 lei, related to at least one commercial relationship that is the object of the transport.

Fines related, the lack of integrity of the seals applied by the authorities on transports will be sanctioned with amounts of up to 50,000 lei, which will be applied directly to the drivers. The sanctioning approach is totally different to the e-Transport system, where compliance responsibilities and sanction risks are with the suppliers or customers, as the case may be, but never with the carriers. In the case of e-Sigiliu, the responsibility belongs exclusively to the drivers who carry out the transports, as they are the only ones who must ensure that the applied seal maintains its integrity in transit.

The contravention regime related to the e-Transport system covers both the lack of reporting and incorrect reporting and provides for fines between 5,000 and 100,000 lei, and for certain acts, even the confiscation of the value of the goods transported.

Article published in TaxMagazine.ro