The state budget will sustain huge losses when the agricultural package that was recently adopted by Parliament starts to be implemented and the farmers will not enjoy great assistance, consider experts of the Institute of European Policy and Reforms, IPN reports.
The experts noted that the losses of the state could rise to over 200 million lei during three years. “When the budget incomes decrease, the provision of tax concessions is not justified and the newly created gap in the budget will have to be covered with the assistance of the other citizens,” reads an analytical note of the Institute.
Besides promoting a preferential behavior towards a group of economic entries, the introduction of the agricultural loan only in the banking system, not yet in the network of microfinance organizations, shows that the legislative body has a biased attitude to banks, said the experts.
They also said that if the Government does not work out an efficient and functional instrument that would cover all the losses sustained by the banks in the process of providing the agricultural loan, there will be achieved an opposite objective – the banks will stop to finance the farmers. An alternative solution is to create a guarantee fund for farmers and to provide direct subsidies to help farmers who take out loans for irrigation pay interest.
The package of legislative amendments in support of the farmers, passed in the first reading on July 30, envisions the application of the zero income tax for economic entities working in agriculture, regardless of the legal organizational form, during three consecutive fiscal periods, starting with January 1, 2015. An agricultural loan will be provided by the commercial banks in cooperation with the State Loan Guarantee Fund at a floating interest rate, calculated from the base rate set by the National Bank of Moldova, diminished by 5%.