Last week, Carpathia Investing Club hosted another meeting for investors and entrepreneurs, featuring special guest Ovidiu Coruțiu, CEO of C&C Financial Services. As always, the event was moderated by Flavian-Cătălin Pah, investment consultant, and covered essential topics regarding the 2025 tax obligations and their impact on the business environment.

Dividend Tax and Its Impact on Investors

One of the main topics discussed was the increase in the dividend tax from 8% to 10%. While this increase may seem like an additional burden, Ovidiu Coruțiu pointed out that Romania still has one of the lowest dividend taxes in the region. Therefore, even with this increase, the market remains attractive to investors.

Romanian Capital Market and the Polish Model

Ovidiu Coruțiu also shared insights into the Romanian capital market, expressing optimism about its growth. However, he highlighted a significant challenge: the lack of a sufficient number of solid companies for investors to place their capital in.

Comparing the situation to Poland, Ovidiu mentioned a key aspect of managerial responsibility:
“In Poland, any manager of a joint-stock company (SA) on the Board of Directors is personally liable with their own assets for the decisions made within the company. This regulation has been in place for over 20 years and imposes a high level of accountability on those leading such entities.”

Tax Optimization – Benefits and Risks

Another crucial topic discussed was tax optimization. While there are legal ways for entrepreneurs to reduce their tax obligations, Flavian-Cătălin Pah warned that such solutions could have long-term legal implications:
“Although tax optimization strategies exist, they come with a legal burden that could catch up with you in 10 years.”

Investing: Individual vs. Legal Entity

A key point of interest for participants was the optimal way to invest—as an individual or as a legal entity. Both options come with advantages and disadvantages, depending on the investor’s strategy and goals.

Regarding investment strategies, Flavian-Cătălin Pah provided valuable advice:
“If you want to start investing without complicating your portfolio too much, you can buy S&P 500 and other established ETFs, achieving an average annual return of 10%. If you seek higher growth, you need to invest more time in analysis. A balanced approach involves selecting individual companies to build a diversified portfolio. On the other hand, if your goal is exponential capital growth, investing in startups can be a solution. Although nine out of ten investments may fail, the tenth could generate a significantly higher return than any other stock market investment.”

Next Carpathia Investing Club Meeting

Although we usually meet on the last Thursday of each month, our next gathering will be on March 20. Our special guest will be Iulian Nedea, co-founder and Chairman of the Board at Simtel Team S.A., a recently listed company and a national market leader with an international presence.

As always, we will have a Q&A session at the end, where participants can ask questions and gain valuable insights.

See you on Thursday, March 20, at Urania Social Hub, Strada Horea no. 4, at 7:00 PM.

Until then, keep up the investing!