Taxing meal and holiday vouchers with social health insurance contributions, in addition to income tax, will have negative effects on the incomes of all social categories, the National Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Romania (CNSLR) Fratia representatives warn in an open letter sent to the Prime Minister and the Ministers of Finance and Labour.
The trade unionists argue that the current inflationary context, which puts enormous pressure on those with low and very low incomes, in no way justifies the over-taxation of an instrument that also has a distinct social character, saving important expenses for some categories of employees who cannot secure, from their very low incomes, an adequate meal during the period spent at work, Agerpres reports.
"The system of extra-salary benefits granted to employees has major advantages precisely because it is adopted, in its current form, by many actors in the economy. As an example, 9 out of 10 employers appreciate the tax advantages of vouchers as they are now. Currently, in Romania, 90,000 employers use the system of extra-salary benefits and related products and more than 4 million employees benefit from this form of benefit. Although this type of financial instrument is now used in most developed countries, it exists and is developing precisely because it has an obvious tax incentive behind it (significant tax deductions without which its existence would not be justified). At the same time, there are many countries (e.g. Austria, Belgium, France, Greece and Italy) that do not tax meal vouchers, as they are 100% tax deductible," says the source.
According to the study conducted by the Romanian Academy, the annual receipts to the state budget generated by vouchers are between 2.3 billion RON and 3.1 billion RON, the annual receipts as taxes on personal income, generated by the operation of vouchers, are between 712 million RON and almost 930 million RON. Vouchers also contribute to the tax revenues collected to the general consolidated budget in annual proportions ranging from 1.62% to over 2%. About two thirds of the goods and services purchased from the relevant industries with vouchers are addressed to the domestic supply, which leads to an efficient stimulation of domestic production of goods and services for current consumption.
"In the event of a reduction in the volume of vouchers on the market, as a result of the implementation of the measure of additional taxation of vouchers (as shown by the studies in other countries above), in addition to the decrease in direct state revenues that could be collected as a result of the application of the tax, all the amounts collected as a result of the multiplier effect of the voucher system will also decrease," the trade unionists argue.
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