Law no. 30/2024 amending Law no. 84/1998 on trademarks and geographical indications, Law no. 129/1992 on the protection of designs and models, as well as Law no. 64/1991 on patents for invention.
In Article 3 of Law no. 84/1998 on trademarks and geographical indications, republished in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 856 of September 18, 2020, with subsequent amendments and completions, letter j) is amended and shall have the following content:
For the purposes of this law, the terms and expressions below are defined as follows:
(…)
j) authorized representative – a person who practices the profession of lawyer or industrial property advisor and who may represent an interested party in proceedings before the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks, hereinafter referred to as the representative;”.
In Article 2 of Law no. 64/1991 on patents for invention, republished in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 613 of August 19, 2014, letter h) is amended and shall have the following content:
For the purposes of this law, the terms and expressions below are defined as follows:
(…)
h) authorized representative – a person who practices the profession of lawyer or industrial property advisor and who may represent an interested party in proceedings before the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
Law no. 33/2024 amending and supplementing Law no. 227/2015 on the Fiscal Code.
Law no. 227/2015 on the Fiscal Code, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 688 of September 10, 2015, with subsequent amendments and completions, is amended and supplemented as follows:
After Article 321.1, a new article is introduced, Article 321.2, with the following content:
Art. 321.2. – General obligations of payment service providers
(…)
(2) Payment service providers are obliged to keep records of payment beneficiaries and payments related to the payment services they provide for each calendar quarter, to enable competent tax authorities to carry out checks on the supply of goods and the provision of services which, in accordance with the provisions of Chapter V of this title, are deemed to take place in Romania, in order to achieve the objective of combating fraud in the field of VAT.
(3) The obligation referred to in paragraph (2) applies only to payment services provided in relation to cross-border payments. A payment is considered cross-border where the payer is in one Member State and the payee is in another Member State, a third territory, or a third country.
(4) The obligation incumbent upon payment service providers under paragraph (2) applies where, during a calendar quarter, a payment service provider provides payment services corresponding to more than 25 cross-border payments to the same payment beneficiary.
(5) The number of cross-border payments referred to in paragraph (4) shall be calculated with reference to the payment services provided by the payment service provider for each Member State and for each identification element as provided for in paragraph (10). Where the payment service provider holds information that the payment beneficiary has multiple identification elements, the calculation shall be made per payment beneficiary.
(6) The obligation set out in paragraph (2) does not apply to payment services provided by payment service providers of the payer for any payment where at least one of the payment service providers of the payee is in a Member State, as evidenced by the BIC code of the payment service provider or any other commercial identification code unequivocally identifying the payment service provider and its location. However, the payment service providers of the payer include such payment services in the calculation provided for in paragraphs (4) and (5).
(7) Where payment service providers are subject to the obligation under paragraph (2), the records:
a) shall be kept by the payment service provider in electronic format for a period of three calendar years from the end of the calendar year of the payment date;
b) shall be made available to the competent tax authority, in accordance with Article 24b of Council Regulation (EU) No. 904/2010 of 7 October 2010 on administrative cooperation and combating fraud in the field of value added tax, where Romania is the Member State of origin or the host Member State. Making the records available shall be done through a standard electronic form, no later than the end of the month following the expiry of the calendar quarter to which the information relates. The end of the month following the end of the calendar quarter is considered to be the last calendar day of that month, even if it is a non-working day.
(8) The procedure for making the records available as provided for in paragraph (7) lit. b) shall be approved by order of the president of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration.