The taxing of meal vouchers by 24% as from January 1, 2020 produced a number of adverse effects. This way, the value of meal vouchers decreased by 45%, while the number of recipients diminished by 40%, shows a study conducted by the sociological company iDATA in cooperation with the Association of Investors from Romania, the American Chamber of Commerce in Moldova and the France-Moldova Chamber of Commerce and Industry, IPN reports.

iDATA executive director Mihai Bologan said that 75% of the recipients consider the meal vouchers are an important pay raise. But most of the SMEs gave up providing meal vouchers. “The taxing of meal vouchers negatively affected about 67% of the employees who benefit from meal vouchers and only 33% of these said that they were not affected by the taxing of meal vouchers,” stated the sociologist.

As to the benefits of meal vouchers, the executive director of iData said the holders of meal vouchers started to eat healthier. As to the companies that decided to offer meal vouchers, he noted that most of them do not agree with the taxing of these vouchers and would prefer these vouchers not to be taxed. Some of the companies would accept a tax of at most 12%. “54% of the employees are extremely satisfied with the system of meal vouchers, while 5% have an average or low level of satisfaction. The costs associated with the implementation of the system of meal vouchers for many companies exceed the benefits,” stated Mihai Bologan.

An analysis shows that meal vouchers to the value of 1.48 billion lei were provided between April 2018 and April 2023.