“We are extremely happy that people trust us and that we can help them! I believe that trust comes from the fact that our companies, but also our employees, use our services to ensure their legal silence. “
Calcatorvenituri.ro, free tax adviser, Romanians
This year has brought about the “fiscal revolution” that has disrupted the way in which wages are calculated in the entire Romanian economy. Contributions went to the employee, creating uncertainty about how to calculate, but tens of thousands of taxpayers had, at the same time, a hopeful ally, the computervenituri.ro portal. It calculates in real time the salary, contributions and tax owed to the state. About the utility of this online computing tool, we are talking to Mihaela Colesnic, Product Manager at Romanian Software, the company that delivers calculatorvenituri.ro free of charge to all Romanians.
F.S.Rosen This year, the method of calculating wage entitlements was really blatant, people not knowing exactly how much money they should receive. How did calculatorvenituri.ro help it?
MC Indeed, the beginning of 2018 has shaken both employees and employers. We called it a “tax revolution,” because it was a gray period in which no one understood what to do … The idea of developing this computer actually started a few years ago, from the desire to offer free , support, to those who wanted to make such calculations. Calculatorvenituri.ro makes everything very simple. With one click, it processes salary calculations based on selected criteria. Another way in which the portal can help the general public is the revenue comparator that allows real-time determination of gross and net salary, the calculation of revenue for service contracts with authorized persons (PFA), or those who are paid by rights by author or by director or administrator mandate. Everything is done comparatively. In this way, the most advantageous way of paying employees can be chosen.
F.S: I guess people are excited to have such help. How to use the computer? Do you have to be a technology expert to use it or it’s available to anyone?
M.C: It’s a very good question! The computer is so simple to use that anyone can use it from students or authorized individuals to employers and employers. All you have to do is enter the net salary value, let’s say, and the back algorithms calculate your gross, pension, health, tax, and labor insurance contributions. In addition, with our application, our employees can compare their types of remuneration to see which is the best option. All calculations are based on the latest legal provisions on social contributions, so the generated figures can be used with utmost confidence! As a matter of fact, whenever there is a change in legislation, we immediately implement it into the computing algorithms of the application. Calculatorvenituri.ro is free for all individuals and it’s also available that the app on your mobile phone can be downloaded from Google Play and the Apple Store.
F.S: You have also referred to employers … How can the computervenituri.ro application help companies?
M.C .: We also thought about the product for companies, especially for those who do not have a tax consultant or a lawyer. We all know that they have high fees and many companies do not afford such a financial effort. For example, the computer and the comparator prove to be extremely useful to HR departments and payroll when deciding to grant wage increases. I know that in these cases there are various computational problems that can be overcome by using these applications.
F.S.Rosen Are these facilities also available for free to companies?
M.C .: For companies, the salary converter function within calculatorvenituri.ro is available for a modest amount. Here things vary depending on the situation. If a company enters the application to calculate its taxes and contributions, it can use the computer for free. But if he wants to compare or convert the amounts by downloading a template and practically bringing his costs to the salary level of 2017 through simulations of calculations, he has to pay a tax per employee.
F.S.Rosen I have seen that you have a comparison between the salary of 2017 and 2018. Why?
M.C .: With the “tax revolution,” when the contributions were made to the employee, the revenue calculator proved to be a very useful tool for employees and employers because of the uncertainty at the time. Companies did not know exactly how to act and employees did not know what would happen to their wages. The government could not force anyone in the private sector to raise wages to maintain the same level of net. There were companies that did not raise their salaries, but most decided to keep their net employee sums down to 2017 as the cost analysis highlighted in most cases a drop in the wage bill. There have been problems for employees in the IT sector and for employees with disabilities who are still exempt from income tax. In these cases the discrepancy was very high, and from what we noticed, the companies decided to stay at the same salary level by accepting a growth of approximately 7%. That was the impact. We, in order to support them, have developed both comparisons between 2017 and 2018 and a system for companies where they can actually import their gross and net salaries for 2017, possibly from the last salary state and the converter that computes actually the brunt to be considered. So, we’ve provided them with all the necessary elements to make the best decision.
F.S.Rosen I understand that those who have used the bonus variant have not benefited from the Government grant for their health insurance contribution.
M.C .: Yes, but it was specific to IT employees exempted from the profit tax. There salaries should have been increased by at least 20% in order to benefit from the reduction in the payment of health insurance contributions.
F.S.Rosen What happened to those who did not raise their salaries?
M.C .: Those who did not raise wages did not benefit from the grant, neither then nor later.
F.S.Rosen What other functionalities do you develop in the application?
M.C.: Since May we have introduced a system of legislative alerts, which, we say, greatly helps both companies and the general public. In particular, we submit, through a newsletter or article, any legislative change that has an impact on salary calculations. The service is addressed to all registered users with a computer accountvenituri.ro account.
F.S.Rosen Where do you get the legal information from?
M.C .: We daily monitor the publications in the Official Gazette, and if there are any news, we inform our customers in the shortest possible time.
F.S.Rosen And the interpretation of the law, who does it?
M.C .: We do it all. We analyze the possible impact of each law and we immediately inform all our customers. Within the company we have experts in tax legislation, but also labor law specialists.
F.S.Rosen Do you have in mind the famous single statement around which so much has been made?
M.C .: We have had many requests for help completing this statement, which is why we started to work on such a product. I noticed that many people had problems completing the unique statement because the annual income for 2018, estimated at 2017, had to be estimated and calculated the taxes to be paid. We hope that through specific questions we can best guide the public to complete the statement. All users of the computervenit.ro site will be able to export the unique statement free of charge to upload to the ANAF site. This operation can be done by each client or we can do it for a fee. Watch the computervenituri.ro site because we will announce when we launch this new product!
F.C. How does computervenituri.ro link to the HR platform offered by Romanian Software?
M.C .: Calculatorvenituri.ro is actually the mirror of our platform, colorful.hr. Practically, through the platform, we help companies, more precisely human resources departments, optimize all key HR processes, such as payroll, staff management, timing, and even employee appraisal. We also offer full outsourcing services for salary and personnel management as well as recruiting and leasing personnel. And computervenituri.ro comes to help employees, licensed individuals and entrepreneurs.
F.S .: So basically provide tax support for all active categories in Romania. How many companies and how many individuals use your services?
M.C .: We have already over 500 companies in the platform and outsourcing area, which use our products and services with confidence. This means that, almost a month, almost 200,000 employees take their wages on time through our platform. In addition, since we created the calculatorvenituri.ro, we have exceeded 1,000,000 calculations. Of course, we are extremely happy that people trust us and that we manage to help them! I believe that trust comes from the fact that our companies, but also our employees, use our services to ensure their legislative silence.
