Inspectors of taxes, barrier cashiers

This season, 50 public servants of the Public Service for Contributions, Taxes and other Incomes to the Local Budget will be sent to Mamaia to collect the barrier tax.

Using as a pretext the blocking of hiring new staff with the public administration, this year those collecting the tax on Mamaia barriers will be the employees of the Service of Local Contributions and Taxes.

On the address of our newspapers, there arrived yesterday a complaint letter, in which the anonymous writer informed us that this summer the inspectors of taxes with Constanţa SPIT [Public Service for Contributions and Taxes] will be relocated to the pay desks of the barriers in Mamaia resort, for the whole period of the season.

Our complaining character told us that the inspectors of taxes are enduring this abuse each and every summer, "they are sent to work at the barriers like convicts, with no right to say no to this". As our anonymous character describes, it seems that those sent to Mamaia during the summer season "have no other option". "Are the public servants connected to the barrier in any way? Why are they forced to work in those doghouses in Mamaia if their activity has nothing in common to the tax collected by SPITVBL [Public Service for Contributions, Taxes and other Incomes to the Local Budget]?", the revolted writer is rhetorically asking.

They say people are doing this voluntarily

In order to clear up this issue, we asked Carmen Trentea, the manager of the Public Service for Contributions, Taxes and other Incomes to the Local Budget, for an explanation; she was in the middle of an audit meeting and she could not give us any information at that particular moment. The manager sent us a written reply, though, which was stating the fact that this option was turned to due to the fact that this year, all the administration vacant positions have been blocked. "The motive for which we are collecting this tax using our staff is OUG [Government Emergency Ordinance] 34/11.04.2009, on budget rectification for 2009 and the regulations on some financial and fiscal measurements for suspending any activities of contests or examinations for filling in vacant positions".

Although the sender of this letters was displeased by the way employees were forced to accept this four month relocation, the answer coming from the manager of SPIT emphasises the fact that actually the criteria on which these relocations have been made are in the first place the consent of the public servant, and secondly his option. "Then the lists have been filled in with other employees from other SPITVBL compartments, first of all taking into account the attributions of their positions, the campaigns they are involved in and their wish".  The SPIT letter states that some public servants even refused to work at Mamaia barriers during the summer season. "Those particular public servants having reasonable reasons for their refuse to perform this activity have been replaced", the official letter is explaining.

Although this is not the first time when we hear that the public servant of the Tax Service end up working in Mamaia during the summer, the chief of SPITVBL is asserting the fact that "the activity of collecting the tax for access in Mamaia resort is SPITVBL responsibility and has been made with the help of casuals, except year 2006".

So, this summer, with or without the consent of the public servant, 50 inspectors of taxes will work far for their papers, their campaigns or their complex activities they are currently performing.