Romanian prosecutors said on Thursday a document which Prime Minister Victor Ponta said exonerated him of charges of being an accessory to tax evasion did not reflect the view of a court-appointed expert conducting an audit.
Ponta was charged last month with forgery and serving as an accessory to tax evasion and money laundering, in a case that has weakened his authority within the ruling party ahead of a general election next year.
He has denied wrongdoing and published a document on Facebook on Wednesday which he said proved he had paid his taxes in full.
Prosecutors have alleged he helped Dan Sova, a former transport minister in his cabinet, to evade paying taxes by falsely billing him for work he did not actually carry out.
An audit of his work was presented to him on Wednesday. It concluded Sova's law firm paid Ponta 181,439 lei ($45,940) for work he did not do, and then used the payment to get a tax exemption, causing losses to the state budget of 51,321 lei.
Ponta posted a document he said was from the audit, showing he had declared the income and paid tax on it instead of Sova.
"The fragment posted on Facebook is in fact an excerpt from a separate opinion of Sova's expert and in no way does it represent the conclusion of the financial and accounting audit," prosecutors said in a statement.
The audit was conducted by a court-appointed expert as well as auditors hired by Ponta and Sova. All three have signed and approved the conclusion of the report.
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