You lost at the tribunal. You have 15 days, not 30, not a month, and within them you must not only lodge the appeal, but also state its full grounds, brought within one of the eight grounds for cassation. Otherwise the appeal is not dismissed: it is annulled.
The judgment arrived in a thin envelope. The tribunal dismissed your action for annulment of the tax assessment decision. Somewhere on page 14, in a single paragraph, the judge wrote that ‘the applicant's submissions cannot be accepted, since the tax inspection report shows the opposite’. That was all.
The question clients almost always ask is the same: ‘what further evidence can we submit?’ The answer is: none. The appeal on points of law is not a second trial of the case, it is a case about the judgment, not about the tax inspection. Anyone who does not grasp that distinction in the first few days loses for good, however unfair the amount was.
Article 483(3) of the Civil Procedure Code says so explicitly: the appeal on points of law seeks to have examined whether the judgment under appeal conforms with the applicable rules of law. Not whether it is fair, not whether it is equitable. The court hearing the appeal does not reassess the evidence and does not reweigh the expert report: it checks whether the first-instance judge, starting from the facts which he himself found, correctly applied the law and complied with the essential procedural rules.
In administrative and tax litigation, there is no ordinary appeal. Article 20(1) of Legea nr. 554/2004: ‘the judgment given at first instance may be challenged by an appeal on points of law, within 15 days of communication’.
The law did not always read this way: in its original form, the time limit ran ‘from the date of pronouncement or of communication’, a formula declared unconstitutional by Constitutional Court Decision no. 189/2006. Since 2007, the reference point has been single and certain: communication. The practical consequence: everything that could be proved must be proved at first instance; all that can be discussed on appeal is whether that court correctly applied the law.
The competent court is determined as a mirror of jurisdiction on the merits (Article 10(1)). Disputes concerning taxes, duties, contributions and their ancillary charges up to 3,000,000 lei are heard on the merits by the tribunal, those above 3,000,000 lei by the court of appeal (a threshold raised from 1,000,000 lei by Legea nr. 212/2018). A judgment of the tribunal is therefore challenged before the court of appeal, and a judgment of the court of appeal, before the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The threshold decides who hears your appeal and which body of case law applies to you: check it together with the stamp duty, before filing.
One point that comes as a surprise: the filtering procedure for appeals before the High Court no longer exists, expressly removed from administrative litigation by Legea nr. 212/2018, with Article 493 later repealed in full by Legea nr. 310/2018. A tax appeal is heard directly in a public hearing, with the parties summoned, without a preliminary admissibility stage.
This is where most appeals are lost, before they are even read on the merits.
The grounds of appeal must be stated in the appeal application itself (Article 487(1)). Since in administrative litigation the time limit runs from communication of the judgment, there is no separate, later stage for ‘filing the grounds’. An application filed in time but without grounds is void, Article 489(1).
More seriously: Article 489(2) provides the same sanction, nullity, where the grounds relied upon do not fall within the grounds for cassation listed in Article 488. An appeal written with passion, but which merely repeats dissatisfaction with the facts as found, is not a ‘weak’ appeal. It is a void one: the court does not dismiss it as unfounded, it annuls it, without even discussing it. The only safety valve is Article 489(3): grounds for cassation that are matters of public policy may be raised of the court's own motion even after the time limit has expired. It is a safety valve, not a strategy.
WARNING: Do not use up the time limit waiting for ‘the full statement of reasons’: the judgment was already communicated to you with its reasoning, and the 15 days run from that communication, including where it is made electronically. And do not confuse the suspensive effect of the appeal on the judgment with a suspension of the tax assessment decision: they are different things, and the second is obtained only through an application based on Article 14 or Article 15 of Legea nr. 554/2004.
Article 488(1) sets out an exhaustive list of eight grounds. Here they are, with the situations in which they actually arise in tax litigation.
The court was not composed in accordance with the law, referring to the composition of the specialised administrative and tax panel.
The judgment was given by a judge other than the one who took part in the hearing on the merits, or by a panel other than the one randomly assigned, verifiable from the interlocutory orders and the heading of the judgment.
Typical in tax matters: a case involving liabilities above 3,000,000 lei heard by the tribunal instead of the court of appeal, or the other way round.
For instance, where the court substitutes itself for the tax authority and determines the taxable base itself, instead of annulling the act.
Rules whose breach entails nullity: unlawful summons, failure to put a plea to the parties for discussion, an unreasoned refusal of decisive evidence.
The judgment does not state the reasons on which it is based, or states reasons that are contradictory or unrelated to the nature of the case.
Where a prior final judgment has already decided the same period or the same mechanism.
The headline ground in tax litigation, developed below.
Ground 8, breach of substantive law. This is where practically every serious tax case is decided: a mistaken interpretation of the conditions for VAT deduction, disregarding CJEU case law and the primacy of EU law; an incorrect legal characterisation of a contractual relationship, recharacterising independent activity as dependent activity; disregarding the limitation period for establishing tax claims, or miscalculating the moment from which it runs; applying the version of a rule in force today instead of the one in force during the period under inspection, an error more common than one would think in cases concerning old tax years. This is also the ground on which the grounds of nullity of a tax administrative act are analysed.
Pay attention to the subtlety that decides many appeals: not every complaint about the evidence becomes ‘a mistaken application of the law’ simply by being reworded. Courts hearing appeals promptly recharacterise disguised challenges to the merits. But the ground for cassation is real and different where the first-instance court, starting from the facts it itself found, draws a legal conclusion incompatible with the rule. That is a question of law.
Ground 6, absence of reasoning. ‘The applicant's submissions cannot be accepted, since the tax inspection report shows the opposite’ is not reasoning. It is a restatement. Where the first-instance court merely repeats the tax authority's findings without answering the specific defences, the party-appointed expert report, the documents filed, the limitation argument developed over three pages, the judgment does not state the reasons on which it is based. The right to a fair trial includes the right to receive an answer to decisive arguments. In tax litigation, where one of the parties is the state, this ground is often the only real means of review.
An accounting expert report rejected or disregarded at first instance is not redone on appeal. The evidence is built at first instance, that is where the case is won or lost.
With the strict exception of documentary evidence (Article 492), which cannot make up for a failed evidentiary case.
The facts as found by the first-instance court remain the framework within which only the application of the rule is discussed.
No new claims can be raised beyond the action for annulment tried at first instance.
Something must be said plainly here, as a matter of professional honesty: the appeal on points of law does not fix a failed evidentiary case. If the expert report was not requested at first instance, if the documents were left in ring binders, the appeal solves nothing. At most, through a quashing with remittal, it can reopen a trial, but only in the two situations exhaustively provided for by law.
Article 20(3) of Legea nr. 554/2004 lays down a rule that departs from ordinary law and matters greatly in practice: the rule is quashing with retention, ‘where the appeal is allowed, the court hearing the appeal, having quashed the judgment, shall retry the case on the merits itself’.
Quashing with remittal is the exception and occurs, once only, in two situations: (i) where the first-instance judgment was given without the merits being tried, for instance, the action was dismissed on a plea (being out of time, absence of a prior administrative appeal, lack of interest) which the court hearing the appeal finds to have been wrongly upheld; (ii) where the case was tried in the absence of a party unlawfully summoned both for the taking of evidence and for the hearing on the merits. If the summons was unlawful only for the taking of evidence, the court hearing the appeal quashes the judgment and retries the case itself.
Why it matters: in many tax cases, quashing with remittal is the only truly useful outcome, because it reopens the evidentiary stage before the first-instance court. Quashing with retention means the court hearing the appeal retries the merits on the existing case file, with the evidence already taken. An appeal drafted for remittal and one drafted for retention are not written the same way.
Article 20(2) provides that ‘the appeal suspends enforcement and is heard as a matter of urgency’. Almost every client misreads this provision.
The appeal suspends enforcement of the judgment under appeal, not enforcement of the assessment decision. If you lost at first instance, there is nothing for the dismissing judgment to enforce: the tax act was already producing its effects, under Article 278(1) of the Tax Procedure Code, according to which an administrative appeal does not suspend enforcement.
Protection for your assets during the appeal comes from elsewhere. Suspension of enforcement of the tax act obtained under Article 15 of Legea nr. 554/2004 operates until the case is finally resolved, and therefore also during the appeal. If obtained under Article 14, it is extended by operation of law if you won at first instance (Article 15(4)), even without an express request. If, however, you lost at first instance and the suspension had been granted under Article 14, the protection lapses, and, in the absence of a new application, enforced collection can begin while the appeal is still pending.
This is one of the harshest realities of tax litigation: you can win the appeal two years later, over an estate that has already been enforced against.
Before drafting an appeal, the test has three steps, and the client has the right to hear the result.
Not ‘I am right’, but: which rule was misapplied, and in what does the mistake consist. If the answer is ‘the court did not believe our expert report’, there is no ground for cassation.
Read the judgment looking for an answer to the essential defences. If it is missing, ground 6 is available.
Quashing with retention in a case with insufficient evidence can mean a second, more expensive defeat. Quashing with remittal can be worth as much as the entire dispute.
An appeal filed only ‘because we still have a remedy’ costs stamp duty, fees, two years of uncertainty and, sometimes, costs awarded to the other party. The reference point for stamp duty is Article 24 of O.U.G. nr. 80/2013: 100 lei where the grounds relied upon fall under points 1 to 7; for breach of substantive law, 100 lei for claims that cannot be valued in money, or 50% of the duty owed on the amount in dispute, but not less than 100 lei, for claims that can be valued. How an action for annulment of an assessment decision is actually classified is a matter the courts do not treat uniformly, and the difference in cost can be significant: check it at the time of filing, based on the dedicated analysis of jurisdiction and stamp duty. When what is at stake is a disproportionate amount established after an inspection, the calculation is worth doing beforehand, not afterwards.
Revision for breach of European Union law. Article 21(1) of Legea nr. 554/2004 provides a ground for revision in addition to those in the Civil Procedure Code: a final judgment given in breach of the primacy of EU law. The time limit, under paragraph (3), is one month from communication of the final judgment, not from the CJEU judgment being given, which in practice severely limits the usefulness of the mechanism. This is the route through which a later CJEU judgment can be relied upon; how it actually works is set out in detail in the analysis on the primacy of EU law in tax litigation. Alongside this special ground, the general grounds under Article 509 remain available.
The application to set aside (contestație în anulare). Article 503 governs two forms: the ordinary one (unlawful summons of a party) and the special one, arising precisely on an appeal on points of law, where the judgment was given as a result of a clerical error, or where the court hearing the appeal, in dismissing or annulling the appeal, failed to examine one of the grounds for cassation relied upon. It is the remedy for the far from theoretical situation in which the decision on appeal does not answer a criticism that was raised. Time limit (Article 506): 15 days from communication, but no later than one year from the judgment becoming final.
Both are extraordinary remedies, with strict admissibility conditions. Neither is a ‘third trial’.
No. Expert reports are not taken on appeal; the only evidence admitted is documentary evidence (Article 492 of the Civil Procedure Code). What can be challenged, however, is the first-instance court's refusal to allow decisive evidence, as a breach of procedural rules, Article 488(1)(5), or it can be shown that, by rejecting essential evidence, the judgment was left unreasoned in relation to the defences raised (ground 6).
Not by itself. Article 20(2) suspends enforcement of the judgment, not of the assessment decision. If suspension of the tax act had been obtained under Article 15, or is extended by operation of law under Article 15(4), the protection continues throughout the appeal. If not, enforced collection can continue, and the remedies remaining are an appeal against enforcement for irregularities in the enforcement stage and, where applicable, a payment instalment plan.
The action on the merits is heard by the court of appeal, since the 3,000,000 lei threshold under Article 10(1) is exceeded, and the appeal against the judgment of the court of appeal is heard by the High Court of Cassation and Justice. In setting the threshold, the taxes, duties, contributions and their ancillary charges are all taken into account; interest and penalties alone can move a case to a different level of jurisdiction.
Consider revision based on Article 21(1) of Legea nr. 554/2004. The main obstacle is the time limit: the application must be lodged within one month of communication of the final judgment, not of the CJEU judgment being given. If that time limit has passed, what remains to be examined are the general grounds for revision under Article 509, a new claim for tax periods not covered by res judicata, or reimbursement of amounts paid under an act contrary to EU law.
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 appeal period is already running, the other analyses on this subject are grouped under tax litigation. For the concrete stages of a dispute, see tax disputes.
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.