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Romtelecom and Cosmote to freeze investments due to special assets tax [IntelliNews - Weekly Reports](IntelliNews - Weekly Reports Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Romania's major telecom group formed by incumbent operator Romtelecom and mobile operator Cosmote – both controlled by Greece's OTE and indirectly by Deutsche Telekom, will freeze most of its EUR 170mn investments planned for this year in a response to the introduction of a new costly tax, the CEO of the two companies, Nikolai Beckers, announced as quoted by HotNews online news service. The new tax to be paid this year amounts to twice the profit tax paid last year. Romtelecom in particular is in a difficult situation compared to its competitors because of its broad copper-lines network. Romania enforced as of this year a special 1.5% tax on special industrial assets. Beckers proposes that the new tax should be levied on the net value [not including depreciation] and not to the gross value as currently. This would be a short-term solution while in the long run at least the telecom sector should be waived from the effects of the new tax. The new tax was implemented without prior consultations with the investors and in this regard it puts a question mark on the regulatory predictability, Beckers commented. (c) 2014 Emerging Markets Direct Media Holdings LLC Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |