Romanians with millions of euros in cash in local banks are looking at the major Swiss banks where they want to move their money, to protect it given the talks about the introduction of a wealth tax for those with assets worth more than 500,000 euros in Romania.

"A first wave of moving money abroad came amid the panic at the end of 2008. Now people are looking again, asking questions, waiting to see what will happen with wealth taxation. Those who transfer the money out of the country are looking for security, not profit," says the head of the private banking division of a local bank. Last autumn, too when the Boc government was dismissed, some clients with significant wealth decided to switch to euros and take their money out of the country.

In mid this month, the idea of PSD (Social-Democratic Party) deputy Mugurel Surupaceanu to introduce an annual 0.5% tax on individual net wealth in excess of 500,000 euros as of 2010 turned into a draft law submitted to the Standing Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies.

Surupaceanu yesterday said during debates that as far as he knew, more than 20,000 Romanians had assets worth over 500,000 euros and levying a tax in the amount proposed would translate into 200 million euros collected as budget revenues.

"They will probably not be able to get much (by levying a wealth tax i.e.). Of course business people will be tempted to move their accounts abroad. They will probably start to change their citizenship, too," said an entrepreneur who paid 2 million euros in taxes to the Romanian state last year. He says he will run his important operations through offshore companies in 2010, so that he will no longer pay taxes in Romania.

Businessman Dinu Patriciu estimated last year that rich Romanians had 12 billion euros in cash deposited in Swiss bank accounts, that is half of the total savings kept by individuals