Cash payment limits divide coalition: Liberals suggest 10,000 Lei cap

National Liberal Party (PNL) MP Adrian Felician Cozma announced on Monday in the Chamber of Deputies' plenary session that the liberals would submit a draft law that would cancel the new ceilings on cash payments.Thus, it would return to the original form of Law 70/2015, whereby the ceilings remain at 50,000 lei for transactions between individuals and 10,000 lei between commercial companies."I inform you that we are making a correction, as a result of an error in Prime Minister Ciolacu's pledging responsibility. Namely, the PNL group submits a draft law canceling the ceilings regarding the limitation of cash payments and, as a result, we will return to the form initial, through which Romanians can spend their money as they want, in fact, restoring a constitutional right", said Cozma.He explained the reasons behind this draft law in a subsequent press statement, when he specified that the initiative provides for the "correction of a major error" in the legislative package for which the government assumed responsibility."It is inadmissible to limit the freedom to spend money of Romanian citizens. (...) We return to the original form of Law 70 of 2015, whereby the ceilings remain at 50,000 lei for transactions between individuals and 10,000 lei between commercial companies, as is normal. The entire PNL group is with this approach. Mr. Ciolacu definitely wanted - and I don't understand for what reasons - to introduce this measure, which is clearly against the Romanians," he said.Adrian Cozma specified that the PNL could not have signed a motion of censure against the Government of which it is a part, but that does not mean that the liberals cannot correct "an error that Mr. Ciolacu absolutely wanted" to make.The deputy appreciated that the current provision is against the business environment and offered the example of other countries, such as Hungary or Poland, where the cash payment ceilings are much higher. In his opinion, one cannot start from the principle of bad faith and the state bodies must do their duty in terms of combating tax evasion.The mentioned legislative proposal amends Law no. 70/2015 for strengthening financial discipline regarding cash receipts and payments operations, as well as Emergency Ordinance 193/2002 regarding the introduction of modern payment systems.The President of the Senate, Nicolae Ciuca, said on Monday that the revision of the cap on cash payments must be carried out as soon as possible, because there is no fairly distributed network of ATMs that would support such a measure.From November, cash payments to companies and individuals will be reduced, according to a measure included in the package of fiscal-budgetary measures assumed by the Government in Parliament. Payments to legal entities can be made within a daily ceiling 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.