REPERE PRIVIND CORELAŢIA DINTRE EVAZIUNEA FISCALĂ ŞI SPĂLAREA BANILOR
BENCHMARKS ON THE CORRELATION BETWEEN TAX EVASION AND MONEY LAUNDERING

Summary/Abstract: The study examines the relationship between the offense of tax evasion and that of money laundering, starting from the observation that judicial practice frequently charges the two together without verifying, in each case, the concrete basis for that association. The author argues that tax evasion does not, by itself and across all of its statutory variants, generate criminal proceeds capable of forming the object of laundering operations, and that an automatic finding of concurrence risks converting a requirement of typicality into a working presumption. The analysis proceeds through: the distinction between fiscal damage and the proceeds of crime; the identification of proceeds under each statutory variant of Article 9(1) of Law no. 241/2005, as amended by Law no. 126/2024; the issue of self-laundering, in light of Constitutional Court Decision no. 418/2018 and the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C‑790/19 — a Romanian case in which the predicate offense was precisely tax evasion; the evidentiary requirements concerning knowledge of illicit origin; and the consequences of this delimitation for precautionary measures and confiscation. The conclusions propose a six-step verification framework, of use to both prosecuting authorities and courts.

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