Every fifth Moldovan employee gets envelope salary - poll

Chisinau, 24 July /MOLDPRES/ - At least 21.3 per cent of Moldova’s employees partially of fully receive their salaries in envelopes, according to an opinion poll conducted by CBS-AXA, at an order by the Viitorul (Future) Institute, People Watch: Quality Life and Migration, in 2018. On the other hand, the latest data by the National Statistics Bureau (BNS) shows that, in the first quarter of this year, 5.1 per cent of wage earners received envelope salaries and the biggest shares of envelope salaries are estimated for activities in agriculture (37.2 per cent), trade (28.1 per cent) and industry (7.8 per cent).     

The number of persons receiving their entire salary officially grew from 75.1 per cent to 78.7 per cent against 2017. In absolute value, “the number of people who are officially employed, but receive a part of the salary in envelope during one year, dropped from 71,000 persons in 2017 to 40,000 persons in 2018.”

At the same time, the number of those working, but are outside the statistic record, increased insignificantly, as according to their declaration, they receive all their earning in envelope. According to estimations by the opinion poll’s authors, their number increased from 102,000 persons in 2017 to 107,000 persons in 2018.   

According to the poll, the envelope salaries cause damages worth 3.5 billion lei annually to the National Public Budget, of which the National Social Insurances House fails to get over 2.2 billion lei, the National Health Insurances Company – almost 700 million lei and the state budget and the local budgets fail to get revenues worth 550 million lei from income taxes of private persons.   

The fiscal sector reform, announced by PM Pavel Filip today, would lead to a substantial diminution of the envelope salary phenomenon.  

”We will decrease the income on tax of private people from 18 per cent to 12 per cent, by the introduction of a single quota. We have also taken the decision to cut by 5 percentage points the quota of the contribution of the employer to the State Social Insurances Budget, from 23 to 18 per cent; we are talking exclusively about the corporate sector,” the PM said.  ”   

Also, the annual personal exemption will increase more than twice, from 11,280 lei at present up to 24,000 lei. “Thus, the subsistence minimum will not be taxed, which is a novelty for the country. Therefore, the citizens receiving a salary up to 2,000 lei per month will no longer pay taxes. The measures I am talking about will bring a six-per cent increase in the employee’s revenues and a five-per cent in the ones of the employer,” Pavel Filip noted.   

The goal of the governance is to gradually diminish the fiscal burden on salary payments – one of the factors stimulating the shadow economy, and to increase residents’ incomes. The fiscal reform is suggested to be enforced as of 1 October 2018.  

The head of the parliamentary commission for economy, budget and finances, Stefan Creanga, showed confidence that the phenomenon of envelope salaries would diminish quickly, which will lead to the legalization of remunerations and increase of budget revenues.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)