A tax expert was called in on the day the client received the tax assessment decision (decizie de impunere): over 800,000 lei in additional tax, with late-payment charges (accesorii: interest and penalties) already running. Within a few hours, he found three errors of method. But it was too late. The ground on which a tax file is won is not the administrative appeal (contestație); it is the inspection.
The administrative appeal and the contentious court proceedings work with a file that is already formed. The taxable base, the findings, the evidence relied on and the estimation methodology all take shape during the inspection; they are not created again at the appeal stage, only challenged there.
While the inspection is under way, the expert can do things that become difficult or impossible after the decision: identify errors of method in real time, reconstruct missing documentation while there is still time, formulate technical objections that go into the file, and prepare the written position. After the decision is issued, the same arguments remain valid, but the position has reversed: the burden of proof falls on the taxpayer (Article 73 of the Tax Procedure Code), and whatever was not documented in time has to be recovered against a finding already recorded officially. This is also why conduct in the first days of the audit, covered in the analysis on what to do once the tax audit has started, matters more than it seems. At the earliest, the expert becomes involved through a preventive audit, before any tax audit begins.
The starting point is knowing who you are working with: the role, the powers and the limits are set out in the analysis on what the party-appointed tax expert is.
Involvement in the inspection is not simply a “second opinion” given from the office. It is work carried out in parallel with the audit, along five lines.
Translates what the inspection team is requesting and recording, anticipates the direction of the review, and flags early the points where the authority's method is vulnerable.
On method (indirect estimation versus direct assessment), on the calculation base, on VAT, on deductibility, on reclassifications, referring to legal texts and to the documents in the file, not to general grievances.
A counter-calculation that exists before the inspection report is finalised carries far more weight than one improvised at the appeal stage. It shows, figure by figure, where the correct result differs from the authority's.
The responses to requests, the schedules, the statements, the contracts and the reconciliations, prepared so as to support the position, because supporting documents constitute evidence when the taxable base is established.
So that the written position, the counter-calculation and the objections are already structured by the time the decision arrives. The choice of the type of report, accounting or tax, is made early; see which type of expert report you need.
If needed, at this same stage the expert can substantiate a request to suspend the inspection for an expert report to be carried out, where the complexity justifies it (Article 127(1) of the Tax Procedure Code). The taxpayer does not decide the suspension; the authority orders it, but a well-argued request is harder to reject without reasons. What matters is that every step leaves a written trace in the file.
There is one procedural moment where the party-appointed expert's involvement matters more than at any other: the written position on the findings, before the decision is issued.
Before taking the decision, the tax authority is required, as a rule, to give you the opportunity to state your position on the relevant facts (the right to be heard, Article 9 of the Tax Procedure Code). In an inspection, this right takes concrete form in the communication of the draft report and in the closing discussion. You have the right to submit your written position on the findings within 5 working days of the close of the inspection, 7 working days for large taxpayers, a time limit that can be extended for justified reasons, with the agreement of the head of the inspection authority (Article 130(5) of the Tax Procedure Code).
This is where the party-appointed expert report makes the difference. A technical position, with objections grounded in method, in legal texts and in a counter-calculation, forces the authority to respond on the merits and leaves a trace in the file that the appeal body and the court will later read. An emotional “we do not agree” obliges the authority to nothing.
One example: instead of “we consider the estimate of income unfair”, the written position states that “the indirect estimation applied a margin from a three-month peak-season sample to the entire year, although the off-season months, documented by the invoices attached, show markedly lower margins; applying a weighted average margin reduces the additional base by the amount calculated in the annex”. The first formulation is a complaint; the second is a verifiable argument, to which the authority must respond. If a solid written position requires an expert report or documents from third parties, request the extension of the time limit in writing, immediately and with reasons, not on the last day.
NOTE: The most costly mistake is bringing the expert in after the tax assessment decision. At that point the ground is partly lost: the findings are recorded, the documents handed over, the right to be heard (Article 9 the Tax Procedure Code) exhausted, and the time limit for the written position (Article 130(5) the Tax Procedure Code) expired. Recovery remains possible, through an administrative appeal, a suspension, a court-appointed expert report, but it is more expensive, slower and less certain than a timely intervention. The correct order is: expert during the inspection, then the decision; not decision, then expert.
With a tax adviser or a chartered accountant, setting out the scope of the engagement: technical analysis, objections, counter-calculation, written position.
If the expert is also to represent you, the power of attorney is filed with the tax authority, in original or notarised copy (Article 18 of the Tax Procedure Code). Otherwise, they can work as a technical assistant behind your own team, without appearing formally.
The expert needs full access to the accounting records, to the authority's requests and to the answers given, coordinated with the accountant. Without visibility over the actual flow, the intervention stays partial.
A competent party-appointed expert does not argue with the inspectors. Their role is not to win a dispute in the room, but to build a file that will later be read, dispassionately, by an appeal body or a court. The tone stays technical and cooperative; every objection is put in writing and goes into the file; every unreasoned refusal of a reasonable request, for an extension, for access, for taking a piece of evidence, is recorded, because it becomes an argument at later stages.
Open confrontation damages the working relationship and produces nothing usable. Disciplined documentation, by contrast, produces exactly the material the defence rests on. A file in which the taxpayer cooperated, answered with supporting documents and raised pertinent objections looks different, to the appeal body and to the court alike, from one in which the taxpayer resisted or stayed silent. Procedural conduct during the inspection itself becomes part of the defence position.
In a particular type of audit, the review of personal tax situation (verificarea situației fiscale personale, VSFP), the party-appointed expert has a very concrete role. The authority compares declared income against expenditure and wealth, and the difference whose source cannot be identified can be taxed at 70% (the rate applicable since July 2024). Since 2026, this competence has also been extended to the Anti-Fraud structures of ANAF, Romania's national tax administration (Order no. 768/2026); see the analysis on the review of individuals and the 70% tax.
What is at stake for the expert is justifying the sources. They reconstruct and document the origin of the amounts: previously accumulated savings, loans received, sales of assets, inheritances, income already taxed, transfers between the person's own accounts, because the burden of proof falls on the individual (Article 73 the Tax Procedure Code). A source that is real but not documented in time can turn into a taxable base at 70%.
A typical case: the authority finds that, in one year, a person moved through their accounts and spent around 400,000 lei more than their declared income. Without a documented explanation, the difference risks being taxed at 70%. The expert reconstructs the origin of the amounts: part from the sale of a car (contract and bank statement), part from a loan from a family member (contract with a certified date and the bank flow), part from savings withdrawn from an earlier deposit (historical statement), with the remainder representing transfers between the person's own accounts, wrongly counted as income. Each source is proven separately, and what actually remains unjustified is a fraction of the original amount. This reconstruction cannot be done convincingly in the last week, which is why timing matters.
Nothing you build during the inspection is wasted: it all serves the stages that follow. The written position, the counter-calculation, the recorded objections and the organised documentation become the raw material for the appeal against the tax assessment decision and, further on, for the contentious court action. An extrajudicial tax expert report drawn up as early as this stage does three jobs at once: it serves as evidence in the appeal, as support for the “serious doubt” required to suspend enforcement of the act, and as a reference point for the future court-appointed expert report. The earlier and more rigorously this material is built, the stronger the position the defence starts from, including when you find yourself facing a huge amount to pay after an audit.
The question “is an expert worth the cost?” is usually put the wrong way. The right comparison is not between the expert's fee and zero, but between the fee and the adjustment it prevents or reduces. An adjustment of hundreds of thousands of lei avoided or halved through a counter-calculation justifies, in most cases, far more than the cost of the intervention. Set against the late-payment charges that start running daily from the moment of the decision, an early intervention is also the cheapest option.
This is not a promise of outcome: the expert increases the quality and the likelihood of a correct figure, not a guarantee of a particular amount. But the difference between entering an inspection with technical support and going through it alone is usually measured directly in the final taxable base.
Yes. You have the right to be assisted and, if you wish, represented by an authorised person in your dealings with the tax authority (Article 18 the Tax Procedure Code). A party-appointed expert working properly documents and raises objections in writing; they do not confront the inspection team. Their presence is a matter of ordinary procedure, not a hostile act.
The written position on the findings, before the decision is issued (Article 130(5) the Tax Procedure Code, read together with the right to be heard under Article 9 the Tax Procedure Code). It is the last window in which technical objections can influence the inspection report before it turns into a tax assessment decision.
No. They do not control the timetable of the audit. They can, however, provide technical support for objections and requests, and the tax authority can suspend the inspection, among other reasons, for an expert report to be carried out (Article 127(1) the Tax Procedure Code). The decision to suspend belongs to the authority, not to the taxpayer.
The sources of the amounts feeding wealth and expenditure: earlier savings, loans, sales of assets, inheritances, income already taxed. The burden of proof falls on the individual (Article 73 the Tax Procedure Code), and a source that is real but not documented risks being taxed at 70%. The expert's role is to turn a real source into a proven one.
Informative material, updated on 18 July 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice; individual situations must be assessed on their own facts.
If the file contains a calculation that needs checking, the other analyses are grouped under the party-appointed tax expert. For the technical role in the defence, see tax expert evidence.
Time limits run from the date of communication. A first conversation clarifies what is being alleged, what you need to substantiate and how the defence is built, before an estimate becomes a tax assessment decision.