Defence in tax offences related to evasion — the regime of excise duties and warehouses, smuggling, withholding and non-payment, wrongfully obtained refunds, false tax declarations — on the same technical ground where taxation meets criminal law.
Tax evasion is the best-known tax offence — but not the only one. Around it there is a whole system of offences: in the Tax Code, in customs and excise legislation, in the rules on funds. Many of them intersect with or are combined with evasion, and the correct delimitation of the classification can completely change a person's legal situation.
These offences share with evasion the same technical core: a tax obligation, a sum, a calculation. But each has its own legal regime, its own constituent elements and its own case law. Smuggling, for example, is treated as a complex offence in relation to evasion when it concerns goods fraudulently brought into the country. Withholding and non-payment of sums withheld at source has, over time, passed through successive regulations, with direct effects on classification.
For the defence, this means that the first issue is often the legal classification: which rule applies, whether the acts are combined or absorbed, whether conduct is an offence or has remained, after legislative changes, merely an administrative violation.
Producing, holding or trading excisable products outside the legal regime, false markings, breaches of the tax-warehouse regime — criminalised by the Tax Code, as a special rule in relation to evasion.
The fraudulent introduction of goods into the country, evading the duties owed. Treated as a complex, distinct offence, but linked to the tax logic of omitting to pay obligations.
Intentionally withholding, and failing to pay on time, sums representing taxes and contributions withheld at source — an offence with a complex legislative history, where correct classification is essential.
Obtaining, in bad faith, refunds or restitutions from the state budget — frequently in the VAT area — through the intentional, incorrect establishment of tax obligations.
Drawing up or using documents or tax declarations that do not conform to reality, as an autonomous offence or in conjunction with evasion.
Using or presenting false documents to obtain funds from the EU or national budget — at the intersection of taxation, corruption and the economic component.
In all of them, the question of substance is the same: what is the correct classification, does the intent the law requires exist, and how is the tax obligation the prosecution invokes technically reconstructed.
Whatever the exact name of the offence, these files require the same competence: to read the tax obligation, to check the calculation method, to distinguish intent from error and to establish the correct classification. It is exactly the intersection of criminal law and taxation that I cover.
And where establishing the obligation or the loss depends on an expert report, the capacity of forensic tax expert allows a critical reading of it — used strategically, as an attorney, in the defence; the expert report itself is, however, carried out only in the capacity of expert, separate from the role of defender.
The relationship between smuggling and evasion is a delicate legal question, settled through the case law of the supreme court. In certain situations the acts are absorbed, in others they are held distinctly. The correct classification directly influences the sentence and the defence strategy, and is often the first point to challenge.
Clarifying which rule applies and whether the charges are legitimately combined is, in many cases, the essence of the defence in such a file.
The answer depends on the period of the act and the exact type of sums. This offence has passed through successive legislative changes — including a period of decriminalisation followed by re-criminalisation — so the correct classification, by reference to the time of the act, is essential. Sometimes what looks like an offence is, in fact, merely an administrative violation.
Checking exactly the legal regime applicable at the date of the act is the first step of the defence.
Using or presenting false documents or declarations to obtain European or national funds is criminalised distinctly and treated with severity. These files combine elements of forgery, fraud and, sometimes, corruption, with a strong economic component.
The defence concerns the reality of the documents and the funded project, the actual compliance with the funding conditions and, crucially, the presence or absence of fraudulent intent.
Because under each of these charges there is a tax obligation or a calculated sum. Someone who understands how excise duty, customs duty, refunded VAT or withheld tax is established can technically check and challenge the basis of the charge — not just discuss the procedure. This is the difference between a defence that reaches the substance and one that stays on the surface.
An assessment of the file establishes the correct classification, whether the charges are legitimately combined and what the defence is built on — on the ground where taxation meets criminal law.