MoF STATED THAT MEAL TICKETS WILL NOT BE CANCELLED BUT WILL BE TAXED

The Ministry of Finance made a statement for clarifying some points connected with the initiative on meal tickets. The message says that the meal tickets will not be cancelled, but the sum allocated to these, will be taxed.

“The proposed amendments to the legislation are directed to changing the tax regime, applied to meal tickets. These must be taxed according to the general regime, with payment of mandatory contributions of social and medical insurance and the income tax”, the message says.

According to the ministry’s proposal, the meal tickets represent salary, from which no payments are made to the health insurance and social insurance budgets.

According to the MoI, currently 30 thousand people benefit from meal tickets, issued by 620 employers.

“By means of simple transformation of the salary card into meal tickets there is a great risk that a fund worth almost 1 billion lei will be formed by 2020, from which no contributions for social and medical insurance will be paid. This endangers the stability of the state social insurance budget”, the ministry maintains.

According to the initiative authors, any measure including meal tickets is introduced when budget parameters allow it.

“However, the introduction of this measure together with the complex reform of reducing the share of payments to the Social Fund was very risky for the budget stability. Against the background of the 2018 reform, the mandatory contributions for social insurance fell. Thus, measures that influence budget revenues, in particular the state social insurance budget, is jeopardizing the stability of the social insurance system”, the document says.

According to the ministry, the sum of the approved transfers from state budget for covering the social insurance budget deficit in 2019 will account for around 2.84 billion lei against 1.11 billion lei a year before.

“In such difficult budget conditions it is very important to quickly react to the policy that affects state budget revenues. This measure is responsible, directed to ensuring the future of citizens, as well as stability and proper administration of the social insurance budget, which is a priority task for the ministry of finance”, the ministry’s said.