Main fiscal amendments for 2012 discussed with employers and trade unions

The tax on the incomes of legal entities will be reintroduced in 2012. It will be 12% as agreed in November-December 2009. The general and individual tax concessions will be annulled. Exceptions will be made for the free economic areas, interest rates on bank deposits and corporate securities, Info-Prim Neo reports. Minister of Finance Veaceslav Negruta presented the main fiscal amendments for 2012 in a meeting of the National Commission for Collective Negotiations and Consultations (the Government – Employers – Trade Unions). He said the reintroduction of the tax on the companies’ income derives from the necessity of creating a budgetary balance by diversifying the sources of incomes in the public finance collection model. A simplified common tax of 4% of the incomes earned from operational activities will be imposed on the small businesses that will not reach the ceiling of 100,000 lei for voluntary registration as VAT payers. “As a result of discussions with representatives of the business community, we agreed that the given taxpayers will pay a tax of 4% of the turnover or accept the general fiscal regime for legal entities and pay 12% of the company’s revenues. The economic entities that are not VAT payers, but have a turnover of 100,000 lei to 600,000 lei will be able to choose the method of paying this tax,” said Veaceslav Negruta. The income tax rate retained from the revenues obtained as dividends by resident and nonresident economic entities will be decreased from 15% to 6%. The concessions on the income tax of companies that work out information programs will be kept for a period of five years. Representatives of the employers, including Igor Crapivca, chairman of the Businessmen’s Club “Timpul”, said the annulment of the zero tax on the incomes of companies puts them in a difficult situation, especially in this period, when a new wave of the crisis is expected and many of the enterprises intend to stop work. Igor Crapivca stated the zero tax may be annulled after 2015. Leonid Cerescu, head of the National Employers Confederation of Moldova, said the economic entities realize that the zero tax on companies’ incomes cannot be applied for ever. “But we are concerned that the Government finds other ways of increasing the fiscal pressure on economic entities, for example by raising the number of days that are paid by the employers for temporary incapacity for work,” he stated. Minister of Labor, Social Protection and Family Valentina Buliga replied that the given provisions were proposed with the aim of making all the sides involved in this process – the employee, the employer and the National Social Insurance House - more responsible. The fiscal burden from these payments in 2012 will rise by only 0.25%. The social dialogue partners, especially the employers, expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that the companies will be taxed practically two times as they will have to pay the rate of 12% and the tax of 15% on dividends.