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Less administration for entrepreneurs

The senate has passed an amendment to the Trade Licensing Act that brings some administrative simplifications. Among other things, in abandons the entrepreneurs’ duty to provide to the trade licensing authority certain data available from the Trade Licensing Register and other public registers.

The proposed amendment is now waiting to be signed by the president. It primarily aims to further reduce the administrative burden for entrepreneurs. Presently, for instance, they have to provide the trade licensing authority with the identification data of members of the firm’s statutory bodies, even though the trade licensing authority may just as well obtain them from public sources. Moreover, in practice, it quite often happened that a different person was recorded in the Trade Licensing Register than in the relevant public register (typically the Commercial Register).

Similarly, entrepreneurs will no longer have to document the legal title to the premises of their registered offices where the trade licensing authority may verify it by checking the basic registers.

The amendment should also extend the scope of activity of central registration points and make them more efficient, allowing entrepreneurs to register for income or road tax when notifying their trade or applying for a licence with the trade licensing authority.

The amendment also introduces the possibility to ask for the issuance of a spreadsheet containing information on individual entrepreneurs, both in paper or electronic form. The spreadsheet will only contain entrepreneurs’ basic identification data and information such as the scope of business or place of business. For personal data protection reasons, information given in the spreadsheet will be used exclusively for the applicant’s personal need, for instance obtaining the contact information for other entrepreneurs. 

Additional changes proposed in the amendment concern terminology or restrictions in carrying out a trade.