The minimum differential wage will be introduced starting with the 1st of January 2019

Starting with January 2019, the gross minimum wage will increase and will be differentiated according to the level of education.

The Government approved this week an Emergency Ordinance amending a number of normative acts, including the Labor Code – Law no. 53/2003, and Law no. 279/2005 on apprenticeship at the workplace. Amendments to the Labor Code will come into force on 1st January 2019 and aim to create the legal framework for establishing the minimum gross national salary guaranteed in pay by reference to the criteria for the level of studies.

Initially, the change envisaged differentiation according to the seniority in work, but in the end the Government dropped it, keeping only differentiation according to the level of education.

In case you have heard of Service Design and Design Thinking but do not know exactly what they are, this article is for you.

Have you ever entered a store, hotel or restaurant and felt that something was not entirely how it is supposed to be? That what you are looking for is not in the right place, that it takes too long for you to be served, or that many of the employees’ actions or operations are useless? Have you ever accessed a certain website and felt it was very complicated to find what you were looking for, doing unnecessary mouse movements and countless clicks until you found the button you needed

Have you ever felt that the people inside your organization who provide you with internal services (legal, HR, purchasing, ICT, etc.) do not always respond promptly and efficiently enough to your needs? Or that your whole experience in the organization is far from desired?

The law permitting the payment of dividends during the year was voted. According to the principle “autumn is a time of harvest “, perhaps from September or October this year we will already be able to reap the “fruits” of the business.

On July 12, the normative act (Law 163/2018) amending the dividend payment procedure was published, which allowes the distribution of the profit between the companies’ shareholders also quarterly, within the limit of the net profit realized after the preliminary filing of an interim financial statement .

The European Parliament and the Council of Europe adopted on 27 April 2016 the EU2016 / 679 Regulation on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data. Its provisions will be applicable in all Member States of the European Union as of 25 May 2018.

2017 was a year of business growth and consolidation for Ascent Group, which was confirmed by the reported financial results. With a turnover increase of 14.9%, the group exceeds its own growth forecast, estimated at the beginning of the year at 10%, and for the first time in its history it has reached an annual turnover of EUR 3 million.

Not only the turnover shows a positive development, but all the main indicators of the group registered increases in 2017, respectively all types of services provided by the companies within the group had positive dynamics.

The year 2017 represented also a key year in the recognition of Ascent Group as a global training programs provider. This year, the training and coaching division of the group has won several important international projects, thus engaging in the formation of management teams in different countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

The year 2018 brings changes at all levels, including the General Employee Evidence Register and its submission to ITM via the Reges platform. According to Government Decision no. 905/2017, published on 19 December 2017 in the Official Gazette no. 1005, there are regulations regarding the new deadlines for transmitting changes to the contractual elements.

Thus, in August 2017, a new rule was introduced which stipulated that the change of any contractual clause must be registered and transmitted to ITM no later than one day before the date of its entry into force, in this way removing the provisions of the Labor Code stipulating the period of 20 days.

The year 2018 started with a lot of fiscal changes, contained in various normative acts. This is why we are trying to make a brief recap of the legislative changes that take place this year and a reminder of the main checks and declarations to be made at the beginning of the year:

With the latest tax changes some new information appeared regarding the micro-enterprise regime. They refer to the ceiling up to which a company is consider a micro-company and pays the tax on revenues, not on profits, the extention of this taxation system also to the companies who are now the now excluded, ans also the impossibility of companies with a certain share capital to switch from revenu tax to profit tax. The recent changes also include measures to combat outsourcing of profits made by multinational companies.

According to Government Emergency Ordinance no. 79/2017, published on November 10, starting with 1st of January 2018, will increase the ceiling to which a company becomes a taxpayer on micro-enterprise income, from 500,000 euros (as it is currently) to 1.000.000 euros.

This means that companies with a yearly turnover below 1.000.000 euros will not pay profit tax, but they will pay a 1% tax on the turnover.

The Ordinance no. 79/2017 regarding the amendment of the Fiscal Code approved by the Government on 08.11.2017 was published in the Official Gazette of 10.11.2017. This brings important news for both employees and employers.

The main change is represented by the transfer of contributions from the employer to the employee. Out of the total of 9 contributions currently paid by employers and employees, starting with 2018 there will be only 3 contributions, namely:

Even if it seems hard to believe, in Romania, we will get rid of the stamp requirement!

This provision actually already existed from 2015, when a paragraph of the Law 316 already eliminated the corporate obligation to stamp the claims, declarations or other documents in relation to institutions or public authorities. However, a large proportion of the public sector employees continued to request abusively the application of the stamp on these documents.

In order to improve this situation, on 30 June 2017 it was published in the Official Gazette no. 507 a Government Ordinance that not only reaffirms the lack of stamp obligation, but also qualifies officials`demand to apply the stamp as being abusive.

Thursday, the 20th of July, the Romanian Government adopted a decision through which is the employers will have to pay the CAS and CASS contributions at the level of the minimum wage even for the part-time contracts.

Therefore, under this decision, employers will be required to pay social and health contributions at the level of the minimum wage even in the case of part-time contracts.

The measure is taken even if the salary of the part-time employee, related to the number of hours worked, is lower than the country-guaranteed minimum gross salary. Thus, for example, if the part-time employee earns 600 lei gross, the employer will be obliged to pay the pension and health contribution at the level of the minimum salary of 1450 lei gross.

Starting with 2017 a series of legislative changes will take place. Some are applicable from the 1st of January, the others from the 1st of February. We have grouped them in several main categories:

The corporate income tax:

• The taxpayers engaged exclusively in innovation, research and development activities will be exempted from profit tax in the first 10 years of service;
• Will be extended the deadline for the tax exemption regarding reinvested profit in technological equipment, computers, electronics and peripheral equipment, and also software.

The income tax for microcompanies

The changes in the New Fiscal Code are making 2016 the best year for withdrawing dividends. The dividend tax was reduced from 16% to 5%. It is possible to benefit of this opportunity only in 2016.

If you haven`t already did it, you can still benefit from this tax relief only in December this year.

The only condition that must be fulfilled in order to pay only taxes rate of 5% is that the shareholder must obtain also other income for which he already pays the health insurance contribution. Therefore:

In July  the Law 207/2015 has been published regarding the new Code of tax procedure applicable from 1st of January 2016. As follows:

The new Fiscal Code, adopted in September 2015, brings various of changes, applicable from different data. We will briefly describe below the changes that will be effetive starting with 2016.

Changes in the VAT 

Standard rate of VAT for all goods and services will be reduced from 24% to 19% in two steps: starting from 2016 from 24% to 20% and starting with the 1st of January 2017 will be reduced to 19%.

For the delivery of school textbooks, books, newspapers and magazines, except those intended exclusively or mainly for advertising as well as for the service consisting in allowing acces to the castles, museums, memorial houses, historical monuments, monuments of architecture and monuments of archeology, zoological and botanical gardens, fairs and exhibitions and cultural events, sporting events, cinemas, other than those without the right to deduction it will be applied the reduced rate of VAT to 5%.

This is the time when we all are making plans for the New Year Eve, but did we properly budgeted expenditures for 2016?

And to do this, I propose you to review together the main changes of the new Tax Code and also the new provisions of the Ordinance 50/27.10.2015.

From a first look it’s noted that in 2016 the most vulnerable are individuals who are self-employed or freelancers, and the Fiscal Procedure Code is not meant to solve what really hurts, namely: the introduction of rules and procedural limitations about duration and conduct unannounced checks and anti-fraud, or the removal of the effects on third parties resulting from the declaration as being inactive of a taxpayer.

As it was already announced, starting with the year 2016, the Tax Code will have some changes. Some of them have a direct impact on employees. An amendment provides that the tickets gift in the value of maximum of 150 lei, will no longer be taxed starting with 2016. Another change is linked to the personal deductions.

The competition is unfair when the activity of a trader is achieved by the use of illegal procedures, contrary to commercial usage.

The methods which characterize unfair competition are multiple. Wheter they are acts or deeds contrary to the law and honest practices, they can be grouped into crimes, contraventions and/or civil wrongs.

“Exceptional offer, for only 24 hours!” or “Buy two products and you will receive one for free”. Every day we are bombarded by such messages trough written media, television, radio, on the street or subway, each one trying to make our lives easier, proposing best product or service. There is a whole industry of techniques for promoting and selling products with hundreds of specialized books and courses, which are trying to find the best way to reach consumers, many times through practices that are not the most fair.

The law analyzes two kinds of unfair commercial practices:

At the beginning of 2013 Romania introduced the VAT payment system at collection. A system that led to multiple controversy and, although it is based on a healthy fiscal philosophy, it was implemented with multiple gaps.



But 2014 starts with good news. According to the GO 111/2013 was instituted the option of VAT collection application for taxpayers whose yearly turnover does not exceed 2,250,000 lei in the previous calendar year.

In other words, VAT collection system is not mandatory anymore, it becomes optional, leaving eligible taxpayers to decide whether to apply or not based their economic particularities.



Therefore, taxable persons on January 1, 2014 who already apply VAT collection system will proceed as follows:

 

The beginning of 2014 brings a set of legislative changes in the tax area. The vast majority has been announced at the end of the last year, so there are few who know these modifications and the fact that they will take effect from January 2014.

Among these changes, we are listing here below the ones with impact in the field of labor and social protection:

From September 1, 2013 several changes to the Tax Code and its implementing rules shall take effect. Among them, are worth mentioning :

Introduction of the reduced VAT rate TVA of 9% for backery products

This will apply to the following products:

• all kinds of bread
• croissants, rolls, sticks, pretzels, minibaghete, batons and braids ;
• white wheat flour, milled wheat flour, wheat flour and dark rye flour ;
• triticum spelta and meslin wheat – CN code 1001 99 00, and rye – CN code 1002 90 00

Excise tax will be extended to more products.

New categories of luxury products will be subject of the excise tax, such as:

The recently discussed chenges regarding the minimum wage in Romania became a fact. Thus, in the Official Gazette (Part I, no. 52.2013) was published the Decision no. 23/2013, which states the minimum gross base salary guaranteed in Romania.

The new rates are:

• starting with February 1, 2013, the gross minimum wage is 750 lei per month for a full-time program of 168,667 hours in average per month
• starting with July 1, 2013, the gross minimum wage is 800 lei per month for a full-time program of 168,667 hours in average per month

The beginning of the year brought some changes related to the legal and fiscal status of the microcompanies in Romania. Specifically, based on the Government Ordinance no. 8/2013, published in the Official Gazette no. 54 from 23 January 2013, the article 1121, c) of the Fiscal Code was modified, it’s new content being: „obtained revenues that do not overcome the amount of 65.000 euro”.

In other words, the 100.000 eur limit for revenues that allowed a company to qualify as microcompany, valid until last year, was reduced to 65.000 euro.

According to Government Decision 15/2012 for modifying the Law 571/2003 regarding the Fiscal Code for 2013, the taxpayers with tax residence in Romania and whose revenue during October 1st 2011 – September 30th 2012, does not exceed 2.250.000 RON will be applying the VAT charge on cashed-in system starting January 1st 2013.

In order to comply with these provisions, the taxpayer who is pass to the new system is responsible for submitting, before October 25th, a written notification to prove that revenue during October 1st 2011 – September 30th 2012 (inclusive) did not exceed the 2.250.000 RON limit.

• VAT on cash system does not apply to taxpayers that are part of a single fiscal group.
• VAT on cash system applies only to transactions where goods or services are in Romania.

Transations which are not affected by the new system