Chiriţoiu: "Cash facilitates evasion and is expensive"

Cash facilitates tax evasion and is expensive for companies, said Bogdan Chiriţoiu, the president of the Competition Council, during a press conference yesterday.

Bogdan Chiriţoiu said: "Cash has two disadvantages. One is that it facilitates, I don't say causes, but it facilitates evasion. Transactions made with cash are harder to trace and then illegal behavior is facilitated. This does not mean that everyone who pays cash is doing so to break the law. But those who break the law usually pay in cash. Or they are harder to catch if they pay cash. The second disadvantage - cash is expensive for society. Cash means you have to have machines, ATMs, carry money, take money, provide security (...) all these are expensive. For this reason, all over the world, cash transactions are decreasing".

Bogdan Chiriţoiu added: "There are countries in the European Union where cash is almost no longer paid. Because it is much cheaper for companies and banks. These costs go to customers, and to reduce costs you reduce cash payments. Cash payments will be reduced, it seems inevitable to me. There are costs that justify some commissions. I cannot say, at the moment, if these commissions are excessive, but I understand that other institutions are looking at this subject".

Starting this month, cash payments to companies and individuals have been reduced to certain thresholds. Thus, payments to legal entities can be made within a daily limit of 1,000 lei/person. Regarding receipts and payments between a legal entity and a natural person, the daily limit is 5,000 lei to/from a person, and the cash amounts in the cash register of legal entities cannot exceed the limit of 50,000 lei at the end of a day . Cash receipts and payments between two natural persons can be made within the limit of a daily ceiling of 10,000 lei. At the end of last week,

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu accused the banks of "greed", by "artificially" increasing commissions against the background of the debate regarding the limitation of cash payments.