Katya Sotirova-Ivanova took over the management of Ascent Group Bulgaria

Due to the fast grow of Ascent Group’s Bulgarian office, starting with May 2009 Katya Sotirova-Ivanova joined Ascent Group‘s team and became managing director of the consulting group in Bulgaria.

Katya graduated the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Technology within the University of Economy from Varna and the Distance Learning Center from Sofia of the City University from Seattle Washington, with a degree in General Management.

Katya’s 10 years of successful professional experience include management positions in various industries, especially marketing and advertising, media and consulting or coordination of complex business projects and events.

After 3 years as Marketing & Product Director and also Deputy of CEO for Programata Media Group Ltd, since 2006 Katya became the managing partner of Innovatoria Ltd., an important marketing and advertising company.

Starting with 1st of May 2009 a few important changes of the Romanian Fiscal Code became effective, through the Emergency Ordinance 34/2009. We present below the most important elements that have been changed.

Introduction of the lump tax rate

One of the main news brought by the Emergency Ordinance 34/2009 is reffering to the introduction of a new type of taxing, the lump tax rate.

In this respect, was introduced for the Romanian legal entities, payers of the taxable profit, the compulsoriness to determine the quarterly tax by comparing the quarterly income tax with the minimum quarterly lump tax rate and the income payment at the higher amount.

To apply the lump tax rate, the amounts corresponding to the minimum tax, determined according to total income registered on December 31st 2008, are:

Starting with the 1st of July 2009, all the companies who are trading within the European Union will have to obtain an unique code for customs operations, called the EORI code.

The legal provisions that define the EORI code are contained in Regulation (EC) no. 312-2009 and are part of the stipulations of the Council establishing the Community Customs Code, published in EU’s Official Journal no. L 98 dated 17 April 2009.

The procedure for obtaining this code in Romania is regulated by the Order of the President of the National Agency for Tax Administration no. 691/2009 for the approval of the Technical Norms regarding the registration and identification of economic operators in Romania.

Ascent Group concluded in May another important partnership agreement, with MECEPUS, the Mediterranean Center for Public Speaking and Communication.

MECEPUS is a training centre supplementing formal education by giving the opportunity to improve speaking skills and develop a more attractive personality. It offers a range of seminars in Public Speaking and other behavior improvement areas.

MECEPUS Seminars are held in Cyprus, Syria and the Middle East and Moldova in English, Greek, Arabic and other languages.

The law 31/1990 was amended again in April bringing one of the most important changes in the Romanian fiscal environment. In case of voluntary dissolution and liquidation of companies, the process can be done now without a liquidator.

Thus the article 227, paragraph (1), points b) and d) of Law 31/1990, updated on 17.04.2009, describes the procedure of voluntary liquidation and dissolution without assigning a liquidator.

This procedure spares the trader of the need to assign an authorized liquidator to draw up the report of liquidation. Also, this procedure eliminates the stage of publication in the Official Gazette of the liquidation balance and report.

The simplified procedure assumes through 3 stages, which are present below:

Stage I

Costs of doing business in Bulgaria are about 46 percent lower than the average in the EU, said Petar Dimitrov, Minister of Economy and Energy, quoted by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA). On March 5, he called on participants in the Bulgarian Business and Investment Forum to invest in the country, as the cheapest place to invest in the European Union.

Factors that make Bulgaria attractive for investments in times of a global economic crisis are the low labor costs and taxes. The social security burden in the country ranks fourth in the EU.

Starting with January 2009 Ascent Group has signed a strategic agreement with the famous American specialist in research and promotion of the entrepreneurship and innovating solutions in business – Larry Farrell. Based on this agreement Ascent Group will represent exclusively The Farrell Company in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Republic of Moldova for training and consultancy services on entrepreneurship.

Larry Farrell is a world wide authority, being deeply involved on spreading the entrepreneurial spirit all over the world. He presented the entrepreneurship principles in front of more than 1.3 millions of professional individuals, organizations and government.

Under “normal” economic conditions and moreover in economic and financial crisis context, outplacement, as a way to support future ex- employees fully proves its usefulness.

Defined as a consultancy service dedicated both to employees and employers, meant to ensure a smooth transition to a new job, respectively a new organizational structure, outplacement very well points out an ethical approach that companies must prove in difficult times.

On the development route of a company, critical moments can sometimes arise, when in order to remain competitive on the market the company must downsize its personnel or part (from different reasons) with some members of its team, including members of the managerial team. In these situations benefiting from external, specialized consultancy services is ideal. I would name only a few reasons: objectiveness, confidentiality and expertise.

As a company, we consistently care about our customers, which are în their turn other companies. We are concerned with their work – helping them in business development – , with their activities – legal or accounting – , with their people – through the management of human resources, training and evaluation.

In many trainings made at the client I tackle themes as team management, personnel motivation, leadership, conflict, organizational communication. Recently I asked myself if the managers I work with and train have somebody to the other end of the relationship. Who are their employees? Are they ready to benefit from the training of their managers? Perhaps all the actors involved in these situations requires a type of training, preparation to fully benefit of information, new skills and attitudes.

Today the English language has become an indispensable way of communication in business. And more, the most of us, those that activate in various areas related to business environment, claim that we speak English.

But how many times we asked ourselves if the English we are talking day by day is appropriate to the business environment, or rather is an academic English more appropriate to the academic environment in which we grow?

How many of us had the feeling, coming out of school that the English taught in school is somehow different from the one we need to effectively manage our business or simply, different from English that we need daily.

In this respect, there is now the possibility to assess our ability to communicate in English, or to test the English knowledge of our employees, using a method very known at the international level – the TOEIC test.

Starting February this year, Jordan Sheppard launched new services in Romania. The new services are ”Outplacement” and an innovative service named ”Business Intelligence” from HR perspective.

The outplacement services aim at companies which are on their way to downsize part of their personnel and to part with specific members of their managerial team, as adaptation through low costs and efficiency at crisis time. The beneficiaries of this service are especially the downsized employees, who receive in this way professional consultancy for identifying new hiring opportunities and for positively overpassing this difficult period, in terms of social and psichological consequences.

Changes in the social insurance and tax burden in Bulgaria which took place at the beginning of 2009 include a decrease in the mandatory pension contributions owed by employer and employee and an increase in the mandatory health contributions. The reference income maximum remains the same as last year, or BGN 2000. It was brought to that level in 2008, after being fixed at BGN 1400 in August 2007. The 10% proportional income tax for employees remains the same.

As a result of these changes the social insurance and tax burden for gross salaries of up to BGN 2000 has fallen, from 36.2% на 30.3%.

2009 started in Romania in force, with plenty of news.

Besides the economic crisis is being felt more and more, creating a turbulent economic environment, we have a new Government, which from the first steps took many decision, contested and generating multiple changes. Last but not least, from the 1st of January 2009 many legislative changes shall became effective, some already approved in previous years, but which take effect only after that date, others very fresh.

I will therefore try to review the main changes brought by the beginning of 2009 which are affecting the business environment.

In the following period, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission will come to Bucharest in order to evaluate the macroeconomic situation and to initiate the discussions with the view to conclude a support agreement to cover the financing deficit in 2009.

Economic forecasts for this year look pretty bad, and Romania needs external funding. This funding is needed to cover the external deficit and the budget deficit having in view the strong decrease of foreing direct investments, direct investments in productive assets by companies incorporated in foreign countries and decrease of the revenues at the state budget.

According to the latest estimations, the budget deficit at the end of the year is about 5% of GDP and external deficit increased in October to 14.4 billion euros, being almost 11% higher than after ten months of 2007.

National Tax Administration from Romania (ANAF) includes the amounts derived from the rental contracts within the category of incomes obtained from self-employment. Exceptions are contracts to lease agricultural goods. According to the Fiscal Code, are treated as income from rents all income, in cash and / or in kind, resulted from the giving up of the use of movable and immovable property acquired by the owner, beneficial owner or other legal owner.

On the charge, there will be:

• tax net income, the rate of 16% – compared with 12% share of the gross income from property disposal use;
• tax net income, the rate of 5.5% CASS – like any income derived from independent activities

Regarding the taxation, the person who derives income from property disposal use has the obligation to fill in, until the 15 of May next year, the form 200 “Declaration on income made”, code 14.13.01.13.