Company managers deem as an aberration the proposition included by the Labour Ministry in the new Labour Code draft, stipulating that employers must establish a guarantee fund for salary payment.
The Finance Ministry shares the same opinion. "We do not agree with the initiative aiming to establish the salary guarantee fund, which involves larger fiscality than the direct fiscality for salaries," Cornelia Petreanu, head of the Finance Ministry's Department of fiscal policies, told Ziarul Financiar.
"European practice in this field does not stipulate the establishment of such a fund, either. On the other hand, the adoption of this stipulation would lead to dissipated responsibility of the Finance Ministry in exerting the fiscal policy," Petreanu said.
On the other hand, Labour minister Marian Sarbu claims that the guarantee fund was included in the text of this normative document following a Directive of the European Community Council on employee protection.
The Fund is an institution where employers are bound to ensure their own employees against the risk of non-payment of the money they are owed through the execution of the labour contract or in case the contract is discontinued, the minister says.
Consequently, the Labour Ministry suggests that employers should establish a fund that would account for twice the value of the current annual salary fund. The above-mentioned fund must be established within three years since the normative document is issued.
According to calculations made by Ziarul Financiar, such a fund would amount to more than 21 billion dollars for the entire economy, a huge amount of money that would remain stuck in bank accounts.
On the other hand, the Labour Ministry says that the sums paid as guarantee are fiscally deductible. If so, the Finance Ministry would stop cashing the profit tax for many years.
According to atefan Varfalvi, chairman of telecom company Imsat Bucharest, "the code would be an aberration" if it is passed under its current form.
"I hope this is just a typing error. They may be talking about the double value of the monthly salary fund, not the annual one. Anyway, it is not fair for the state to meddle once more into the internal affairs of companies," Varfalvi said.
The establishment of such a fund would lead to higher arrears, with many companies bound to experience liquidity problems.
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