As part of the "Who is accountable?" campaign, which aims to make the authorities accountable for speeding up the recovery of outstanding debts to the public budget, representatives of The Foundation For The Defense Of Citizens Against State Abuses (FACIAS) had a working meeting today, March 18, with representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the National Agency for Tax Administration (ANAF).
On this occasion, FACIAS presented an analysis of the list published by ANAF, known in the public space as the "list of shame". The data in the FACIAS analysis show that, of the 42,302 taxpayers included, more than 5.400 have debts of more than 1 million lei each, with a cumulative amount exceeding 59 billion lei (about 11.6 billion euro).
Although designed as a transparency tool, the list as currently published on the ANAF website is unusable and inefficient. It contains more than 2,700 pages of taxpayers listed in alphabetical order, without the possibility of filtering according to relevant criteria and without essential information such as the due date of the obligations, the stage of enforcement or the real chances of recovery. An example from this list is the company Italia Tobacco Producțion SRL, which is listed as owing the state budget around €300 million, money that ANAF will never be able to recover because the company is bankrupt.
The list does not reflect the real situation of the debtors and does not effectively contribute to increasing the collection rate, losing its usefulness for its stated purpose.
During the discussions, FACIAS emphasized the need to reform the way in which information on large debtors is presented, but especially the urgency of speeding up and streamlining the debt recovery process. At the same time, FACIAS also proposed the adoption of concrete measures to prevent the accumulation of debts, including the establishment of an General Enforcer, with the task of monitoring and intervening in the case of outstanding debts, especially those older than 180 days.
Representatives of the Ministry of Finance and ANAF have shown themselves open to the proposals put forward by FACIAS and have indicated that they will take steps to update the list by including relevant information and introducing filtering criteria that will help increase transparency and effectively contribute to increasing the collection of state budget debts.
The FACIAS analysis shows that, in addition to administrative malfunctions, the current legislative framework clearly favors companies to the detriment of individuals, through mechanisms that allow the suspension of enforcement and the postponement of debt recovery.
Therefore, normative acts such as Government Ordinance No. 6/2019, Law No. 239/2025, Law No. 85/2014 on insolvency and Law No. 554/2004 on administrative litigation create the possibility of restructuring, installment or suspension of the execution of tax liabilities. In practice, these mechanisms frequently lead to situations where the State becomes a junior creditor and the recovery of claims is delayed or even jeopardized. As a result, individuals are immediately forced into execution, while companies owing millions of euros to the state budget continue to benefit from tax breaks and go about their business unhindered.