Mass tax seizures in Constanța

More than 15,000 taxpayers in Constanța had bank-account seizures imposed over unpaid local taxes, part of a much wider delinquency list recorded at the end of 2025. (focuspress.ro) Focus Press, citing official data from the Constanța Public Service for Taxes and Fees, reported that 46,810 individuals and companies still owed money to the local budget on December 31, 2025. The same report said 15,029 of them were already under bank-account garnishment. (focuspress.ro) The enforcement drive did not begin in April 2026. The tax office, known by its Romanian initials SPIT, announced on October 1, 2025 that it would start legal procedures to place automatic garnishments on the bank accounts of people and businesses with overdue local tax debts. (spit-ct.ro) Under Romanian local-tax collection rules, a garnishment is a debt-collection order sent to a bank after a tax debt remains unpaid, allowing the authority to freeze and collect money from the account. SPIT said the measure was aimed at recovering overdue claims to the local budget and urged taxpayers to check their fiscal status and pay voluntarily to avoid enforcement. (spit-ct.ro) The October wave hit soon after a September 30, 2025 payment deadline for local taxes and fees. Local outlet CT100 reported that many residents found salaries and accounts blocked in the days that followed, and described the campaign as unusually large in scale. (ct100.ro) After complaints spread, City Hall and SPIT said the seizures were not an ad hoc action but part of a routine annual campaign. In a later statement, the municipality said the October 2025 campaign followed 54,769 payment notices and argued that the procedure was legal and carried out every year. (primaria-constanta.ro; ct100.ro) That defense came after public criticism from local councilor Felicia Ovanesian, whose claims about allegedly abusive account blockages prompted the City Hall response. The municipality rejected those claims and said the enforcement campaign complied with the legal collection process. (primaria-constanta.ro) The numbers show the gap between warning and enforcement in Constanța’s tax system: tens of thousands received notices, tens of thousands still appeared with unpaid balances at year-end, and just over 15,000 had reached the bank-seizure stage. For residents, the next step is not a new campaign but clearing the debt or contesting the measure through the procedures already laid out by the tax office. (ct100.ro; focuspress.ro; spit-ct.ro)