A forty-page report drawn up by the company's own accountant does not carry the procedural weight of court-appointed expert evidence, and the role that would actually have helped, the party-recommended expert, was never used. Three roles are often confused in tax and criminal cases: the court-appointed expert, the party-appointed expert and the tax adviser. Each has a different legal basis, a different evidential weight and a different right moment. Here is the map.
In a case where “the figures” matter, tax base, VAT, accessories, loss, three distinct figures can appear. They do not exclude one another; they complement each other. But the difference between them shows in the courtroom.
Appointed by the court or by the criminal investigation body, chosen from the official records, independent by status. Draws up the “official” expert report in the case.
The adviser engaged by one of the parties. Attends the court-appointed expert's work, observes it, and raises objections and counter-calculations. It does not carry the same weight, but it can decisively influence the outcome.
A member of the Chamber of Tax Advisers (CCF). Can produce extrajudicial opinions, can act as a party-appointed expert and, under certain conditions, can even be appointed as a court-appointed expert.
The court-appointed expert is not chosen by the client. They are appointed by the judicial body: by the court, through an interlocutory ruling, in civil and administrative litigation (Article 330 et seq. of the Code of Civil Procedure); by the criminal investigation body, through an order, or by the criminal court (Article 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). Their task is to answer the objectives, the technical questions set by the judicial body, through an expert report, a means of evidence in the case.
What gives them authority is not the fee, but coming from the official records and their status of independence. On matters of “figures”, they may come from two distinct bodies: the court-appointed accounting expert, a member of CECCAR (the Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania), under OG nr. 65/1994, who carries out court-appointed accounting expert evidence; and the court-appointed technical expert specialising in “Taxation”, registered with the Central Bureau for Judicial Technical Expert Evidence, under OG nr. 2/2000, a specialisation expressly included in the list approved by Ordinul ministrului justiției nr. 1190/C/2023.
Note, accounting does not mean tax. The distinction between an accounting expert report and a tax expert report is not a formality. A VAT case or a case of reclassification calls for a tax expert report, one that interprets the taxation rule, not a simple accounting reconstitution. If the court orders “an accounting expert report” where the real issue is one of tax law, and the expert appointed does not have the right specialisation, the conclusions can miss the actual point in dispute. Framing the object and the specialisation required correctly is a matter of strategy, not an administrative detail.
This is where the most common misunderstanding arises. The party-appointed expert does not produce the “expert evidence” in the case. They are a technical adviser to the party who engaged them. In civil and administrative litigation, Article 330(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure allows each party to appoint, at its own expense, an expert-adviser to take part in the court-appointed expert's work. Their opinion does not, by itself, carry evidential value, but it can be an important factor in assessing whether the official expert report needs to be supplemented or redone.
In criminal proceedings, the equivalent mechanism is the party-recommended expert: under Article 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the parties are entitled to ask for the appointment of an expert to take part in the expert evidence ordered by the judicial body. In practice, the party-appointed expert does three things the official expert will not do on their own initiative.
Is present during the operations, checks the method and the documents used by the official expert.
Technically shows the flaws in the official report: miscalculations, documents ignored, objectives left unanswered.
An alternative, methodologically reasoned, reconstitution of the tax base or of the loss.
The tax adviser is regulated by OG nr. 71/2001 and organised within the Chamber of Tax Advisers (CCF). Their natural role is the extrajudicial one: a technical opinion on a tax question, a preventive tax audit, a position on a draft inspection report. In litigation, they can act as a party-appointed expert, in the sense described above.
There is, however, a third capacity, often overlooked: the tax adviser can be appointed as a court-appointed expert. CCF keeps a list of advisers entitled to carry out court-appointed tax expert evidence, conditional on registration, active membership and the annual endorsement, a list sent to the Ministry of Justice. The answer to the question “can a tax adviser be a court-appointed expert?” is, therefore, yes, through the tax expert evidence route.
Their value is not seen only in litigation. The best time to bring them in is before a case even exists: a preventive audit or a second opinion on a risky transaction builds the technical position in advance, one the lawyer can later invoke.
However solid a report may be, the expert, whether court-appointed or party-appointed, does not settle questions of law. They establish technical facts: what the tax base is, how VAT is calculated, what the loss amounts to. The legal classification, the intent, the guilt and the conviction are exclusively for the court, which weighs the evidence freely (Article 103 of the Code of Criminal Procedure; Article 264 of the Code of Civil Procedure).
A report stating that “the transaction constitutes tax evasion” encroaches on the court's role. The relevant part remains the calculation, not the verdict.
The fact that the report was paid for by a party does not disqualify it, but it does place it in a light the judge weighs carefully. What matters is rigour, not the label.
The independence of the court-appointed expert is protected by rules on incompatibility. In criminal proceedings, Article 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure refers to the situations under Article 64 (the same ones that apply to a judge): a person in such a situation cannot be an expert, and if they were appointed nonetheless, the ruling cannot be based on their conclusions.
An expert who has already worked for one party cannot be appointed as an independent court-appointed expert in the same case, whoever was the defence's adviser does not become, overnight, the “neutral” expert in the matter. That is precisely why the roles are kept apart from the start. And the company's own accountant is not “independent” either: a report drawn up by the person who kept the records now in dispute does not carry the value of court-appointed expert evidence, it can at most be a party's point of view.
The tax adviser, an opinion, a position on the draft report, an extrajudicial counter-calculation. There is no court-appointed expert yet; the point is to build the technical position in advance.
Court-appointed expert evidence ordered by the court, matched by the party's expert-adviser (Article 330 of the Code of Civil Procedure), who watches over its accuracy. This is the ground covered by the evidence and the objectives of the expert report.
Under Decizia ÎCCJ nr. 430/2025, specialist expert evidence has become a condition for the lawfulness of the indictment whenever the loss is being established; alongside it, the party-recommended expert (Article 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) ensures an adversarial process in the tax evasion case.
The best technical defence does not choose between the two levels; it uses both. The tax adviser builds the position from the administrative stage, then, as a party-appointed expert, carries it into the court-appointed expert evidence through well-framed objectives and pointed objections to the official report. The lawyer places these within the procedure. In a VAT case where the tax authority refused a deduction, the same specialist reconstitutes the trail of each transaction, watches over how the objectives are framed and raises specific objections, while the lawyer takes the technical conclusions and builds them into the grounds of unlawfulness. It is not the expert who wins the case, nor the lawyer alone, but the coordination between the two levels.
No. The court-appointed expert's report is a means of evidence in the case; the party-appointed expert's opinion does not, by itself, carry independent evidential value (Article 330(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure). Its real value is in showing the flaws in the official report and in grounding objections, a supplement or a new expert report. The court weighs the rigour, not the label.
Not as a court-appointed expert. Whoever kept the records now in dispute is not independent and falls under the incompatibility rules. They can at most draw up a party's point of view. The official expert report is prepared by an expert appointed by the judicial body, from the official records.
Yes, through the judicial tax expert evidence route. A tax adviser registered on the CCF list sent to the Ministry of Justice can be appointed as a court-appointed expert in cases involving tax questions, distinct from the court-appointed accounting expert (CECCAR) and from the court-appointed technical expert specialising in “Taxation” (OG nr. 2/2000).
Because the specialisation determines which questions the expert can clarify. A question of deductibility, VAT or reclassification is a matter of tax law; a purely accounting expert report can reconstitute entries, but can miss the interpretation of the taxation rule. Choosing the right specialisation and framing the objectives determine what the report actually answers.
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.