Consult Group helps bookkeeping services identify legal tax relief and cost optimization mechanisms

“Fiscal Impact in a Period of Crisis. Fiscal Optimization Solutions” was the theme of a seminar intended for the financial and bookkeeping services of companies that was held recently by Consult Group. Moderator Petru Chitanu said the aim of the roundtable meeting was to familiarize the corporate finance specialists with different tax relief mechanisms that can help the companies reduce costs. These costs influence the prices of the finished products and the consumer purchasing power. Diana Sidorenko, tax partner of Consult Group, said most of the countries have implemented fiscal mechanisms in this period of crisis. They included the provision of tax concessions, the hastened refunding of the VAT and other payments. Other countries increased the tax rates. Hungary for instance raised the VAT rate, toughened up the tax collection procedure. “The experience shows that the fiscal relief mechanisms are more efficient because the crisis-hit economic entities have enough problems and do not have money to pay higher taxes. Evidently, such mechanisms are not the best for the state as they lead to lower collections into the budget. But if they are implemented correctly and transparently they can contribute to larger budget revenues as well,” Sidorenko said. Among other fiscal optimization solutions, Sidorenko mentioned the modification of the tax base in favor of companies, formulation of fiscal strategies aimed at reducing the fiscal costs, improvement of cost control through fiscal planning in companies. “In general, the fiscal planning is very important for every company as it is much easier to prevent a mistake than to correct it,” she said, adding that the state should improve the fiscal legislation. Ilona Nicula, legal expert at Consult Group, spoke about the work of the debt collection agencies. The companies that have contracts with such agencies can reduce the pecuniary and human costs when working with the debtors. If the debts are repaid during a year, the commission of 10% is much lower than the costs that the lending company may incur by involving its personnel in this work. The participants in the seminar stressed the necessity of strictly observing the law when cutting jobs in order to optimize costs. Margareta Checeanu, bookkeeping expert at Cosult Group, said the persons that are made redundant must be offered one paid day a week so as they could look for another job. She also said that the redundancy payments must be calculated and paid correctly. Consult Group expert Sergiu Uzun said the fiscal policy that the current government will implement during the next years cannot be reliving. The tax base in Moldova is small. The taxes levied by the Customs Service represent a large part of the budget revenues. According to Uzun, in times of crisis the state can help the economic entities by taking efficient measures to promote Moldova’s exports with the assistance of the Moldovan embassies abroad, removing the barriers to exports and entrepreneurial activity, improving the investment and business climate. Consult Group is a group of consultancy and advocacy companies working in Central Europe and Moldova with a team of over 200 consultants and 5 partners that offer a viable alternative to the BIG-4 auditing firms. With an experience of over 6 years in the area of law, taxes, auditing and management, the Group’s turnover last year exceeded US$1 million. Among its clients are multinational companies from Central Europe, especially Romania, the United States and the CIS.