On the January 19^th 2009, the Citizen Advice Bureau Oradea organized a meeting with the Members of Parliament from Bihor County in order to forward three proposals for legislative changes. Two of these incited the interest and have been taken over by Deputy Lakatos Petru, deputy within the finances-banks committee. Following a laborious process and exceptional work of the Deputy Lakatos Petru, along Deputies Derzsi Akos and Peto Csilla-Maria, on the November 3^rd 2009 the proposal for the modification of the 26^th article from Law 448/2006 regarding the protection and promotion of the rights of people with disabilities, aiming to exempt from taxation the pensions of the disabled elderly, was adopted by the Chamber of Deputies with nearly unanimous votes, except one abstention. On the November 13^th 2009, the proposal was forwarded for promulgation to the Romanian President through Decree no. 1713/2009 and finally becomes the Law 390/2009. The soul article of the law provides the following: the Letter a) of the 26^th article of the Law 448/2006 regarding the protection and promotion of the rights of people with disabilities, republished in the Romanian Official Gazette, Part I, no. 1 from January 3^rd 2008, with subsequent modifications and completions, is modified and will have the following contain: “a) exemption from taxation on incomes generated by salaries, indemnities of wage nature and pensions;”.
This legislative change that obviously improves the quality of life for people with disabilities is the second proposed by the Citizen Advice Bureau Oradea, a social service of Ruhama Foundation, after the change of the Law 416 on March 2008, regarding the minimum guaranteed income, following the exceptional work carried out by Deputy Ionela Pop Bruchental. The modification regulated that the financial aid received through the “Money for High School” program was no longer taken into consideration when the monthly net income was calculated for the minimum guaranteed income, hence improving the quality of life for low-income families with children in high school.
For more information about the legislative process please go to the link:
http://www.cdep.ro/pls/proiecte/upl_pck.proiect?idp=10346.