This is the question that opens, almost word for word, half of consultations of this kind: “I have heard the inspection is coming, what do I do with the cash?” The honest answer, the one that does not sell well, is this: by that point, almost nothing you are imagining is still lawful. The window for moving assets closed years ago, and anything you do now would produce the opposite effect, turning a tax file, which is resolved with money, into a criminal file, which is resolved with years.
That does not mean nothing can be done. It means that what can be done is different from what you are thinking of and, almost always, more effective. The law does not forbid anyone from organising their assets; it forbids reorganising them against a specific creditor, at a point when that creditor already exists. The same gift, made two years away from any risk, is succession planning; made two weeks after the notice of tax inspection (avizul de inspecție), it is fraud. The act has not changed, the context has. And the context is the one thing you can no longer change on the day the phone rings.
A creditor, including the tax authority, may ask for acts by which the debtor creates or increases their insolvency to be declared unenforceable against it (Article 1562 of the Civil Code). For gifts, the beneficiary's complicity does not even need to be proven. The one-year term does not run from the date of the act, but from when the loss became known, a transfer made in 2026 can be challenged in 2031.
Articles 25 to 26 of the Tax Procedure Code allow the tax authority to hold people around the debtor liable for payment without suing anyone: it issues a decision, and the burden of challenging it shifts to you.
From the moment a precautionary seizure exists, disposing of the seized assets is tax evasion, punishable by 3 to 10 years' imprisonment (Article 9(1)(g) of Legea nr. 241/2005). And if insolvency follows, disposing of assets in fraud of creditors falls under Article 241 of the Criminal Code, fraudulent bankruptcy (bancrută frauduloasă).
All three concern exactly the period in which the temptation to act arises.
The most valuable investment of time. Contracts, statements, returns from earlier years, proof of loans, inheritance documents, the history of capital contributions. In a review of personal tax situation, the difference between income and spending is explained through documents, not through statements.
The position taken in the first explanatory note stays with you throughout the file, including in the criminal proceedings. It is far cheaper to think it through than to correct it later.
Under Article 105(8) of the Tax Procedure Code, returns filed or corrected during the inspection, for the periods and claims under review, are not taken into account. The useful window is between the compliance notice and the start of the inspection.
Where accounting and tax rules allow, to properly reflect a probable liability.
The Tax Procedure Code provides for both the classic instalment arrangement, with security, and a simplified form, granted without security, within certain thresholds and for a limited period, a regime amended as of 1 January 2026.
Counter-intuitive, but decisive: an obligation that is paid or rescheduled produces no seizure, no enforcement and, to a good extent, defuses the criminal discussion by covering the loss. Money set aside for payment protects you better than any transfer.
Notice the pattern: all six concern the file and payment. None concerns moving assets. That is not a coincidence.
A gift to children, a sale to a spouse, an assignment to a sibling, can be challenged through the Paulian action; for gratuitous transfers, without any need to prove anything about the third party. With a seizure or insolvency, the matter moves into criminal territory.
Emptying accounts is one of the most visible patterns and one of the circumstances relied on in practice to prove the director's bad faith for joint and several liability.
A price that is never paid, a derisory price, a sale followed by continued use of the asset, all of these are recharacterised. A sham sale is not a weak sale, it is an act that can also attract criminal consequences.
The same customers, the same employees, the same premises, the same contracts, a new company, the textbook case of joint and several liability under Article 25 of the Tax Procedure Code. It produces exactly the result you were trying to escape, extended to the new entity.
Article 9(1)(d) of Legea nr. 241/2005 punishes altering, destroying or hiding accounting records or other means of storing data, with imprisonment from 3 to 10 years. A missing document creates a presumption against you and an additional offence.
Paying a “friendly” creditor ahead of others, on the eve of insolvency, falls under Article 117(2) of Legea nr. 85/2014, voidable, with a rebuttable presumption of fraud, and may also give rise to criminal liability.
Article 9(1)(g) of Legea nr. 241/2005. There is no discussion here.
Several acts of disposal in the months before or after the inspection begins. The date of the act is the first thing checked.
Property comparables are public; a significant difference from the market raises a question by itself.
The relationship is established instantly from public records, and Legea nr. 239/2025 makes the enforceability against the tax authority of a transfer of the shares of the controlling member conditional on meeting certain requirements, including notification within 15 days.
Bank flows are fully traceable, and cash withdrawals show up immediately in the risk analysis.
Spending, purchases and a standard of living that is not supported by declared income.
Each pattern, taken alone, may have an explanation. All of them together, concentrated within three months, build a case.
“I am nearly time-barred” is reasoning that ignores suspensions, interruptions and the extended term. Building a strategy around the limitation period, including by dragging out the inspection, means betting an estate on a legal calculation you do not control.
WARNING: This is the red line of the whole subject, and it is not negotiable. Legitimate estate planning means structures built in advance, transparent, with a real economic purpose, at a time when no concrete risk was on the horizon. Any transfer made in the face of a concrete risk, an inspection under way, a debt due, proceedings started, a seizure in place, can be challenged civilly through the Paulian action and may also give rise to criminal liability. No notary, valuer or contractual structure can change the date on which you signed. And the date is the first thing anyone opening the file reads.
A healthy business, no concrete risk. The matrimonial regime, separating property from the operating business, a holding structure if it makes economic sense, insurance, shareholder agreements, disciplined cash flows. All with a real economic purpose, at market price, documented.
The file substantiating the sources of funds, the defence, the procedural position, liquidity for payment or an instalment arrangement. Whoever tries to do at step two what should have been done at step one is not merely delaying a measure; they are triggering another one.
The date of the act measured against the date of the first concrete risk. This is the dominant criterion.
Gratuitous or for consideration, this determines who has to prove what.
Is there a valuation report? Did the money move through a bank? Did it stay within the estate?
If the remaining estate covered the claim, the loss requirement is not made out.
If so, the discussion is already criminal and is conducted differently.
What can be fixed: incomplete documentation of a real transaction, a missing valuation, a payment that was made but not evidenced. What cannot be fixed: the date, the total absence of any consideration, a sham. And “fixing” it by handing back a transfer already made, during the inspection, adds an act to the file, it does not erase the first one.
Anyone who has seen how these arrangements get unpicked knows that their only real effect is to make the client's situation worse.
Turning a debt into a criminal offence is the worst possible service. A tax debt can be negotiated, rescheduled, challenged, sometimes it becomes time-barred. A criminal file does none of these, and it brings with it a seizure, precisely the dispossession the client was trying to avoid.
Whoever designs and carries out a scheme to evade obligations is not an adviser, but a participant. Complicity is not shielded by professional secrecy, and privilege does not protect assistance given in committing an offence.
A lawyer who tells you, on the eve of an inspection, that something can still be “moved” is not selling you protection. They are selling you a bigger problem, at a higher price, with a delay.
You can, in the sense that the notary will authenticate the deed. The legal effect, however, is the opposite of what you want: a gift is the easiest of all acts to challenge, because for a gratuitous transfer the creditor does not have to prove anything about the beneficiary. You will have moved the house into your children's estate, and it will be sold from there for your debt, with one more piece of evidence added to the file.
The transaction itself does not create insolvency: the estate simply changes composition, and the price received can be traced just like the property was. It becomes a problem exactly when the price is derisory, is not actually paid, or is withdrawn immediately in cash, at that point you have not sold, you have emptied out.
You can file them, but they will not be taken into account for the periods and claims under review, Article 105(8) of the Tax Procedure Code. The useful window closes once the inspection starts; a compliance notice received and ignored is therefore a missed opportunity, not a false alarm.
Do not improvise. Reversing it during the inspection does not erase the first act and adds a second one, just as dated. The situation is assessed against the criteria of timing, basis, price, remaining estate and the existence of a seizure, and only then is a decision made, honestly accepting the risk already created.
This article is strictly informative and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Individual situations must be assessed on their own facts. Legislation as at 18 July 2026.
If you have an inspection under way or have just received a notification, the related analyses are grouped under tax inspection and the review of individuals. For how such matters are handled, see tax assistance.
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.