Accounting, business and tax news April 2016
Accounting, business and taxes news April 2016
Business news
AmCham report: Romania becomes more competitive
According to a recent report recently issued by the Romanian American Chamber of Commerce, Romania becomes more competitive at a global scale. Despite of this, the GDP per capita remains a third of the EU average.
Romania’s advantages highlighted in the report are the educated human resources, a lower cost of the work force compared to other EU countries, the country’s membership in the EU and NATO, the flat tax, as well as agriculture’s potential.
Romania to introduce the single currency
Romania could be ready to introduce the European single currency in about ten years if the process were initiated this autumn, declared Bogdan Olteanu, deputy Governor of the Romanian National Bank.
“To complete a process you first need to start it, and Romania hasn’t yet started preparing the introduction of EUR” he said. According to him, the country would be reasonably ready to make the change within 7 – 10 years.
Housing prices in Romania up 3.6% in 2015
In 2015 Romania ranked a top place in the world for the biggest increase in the housing prices, with a growth of 3.6%, according to a survey by real estate company Knight Frank.
US IT company opens office in Cluj Napoca
The US company 8×8, which provides enterprise solutions for cloud communications, opened recently its first operational center in Eastern Europe in city of Cluj Napoca (west of Romania) . The company was attracted by Romania’s internet infrastructure that allows very high speed.
“A high internet speed offers Cluj a fantastic advantage” said Vikram Verma, 8×8 general manager. The city has also very good programmers, he added.
The company is based on Silicon Valley, California and listed on NYSE. It has other nine centers in the US, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia.
Tax news
Fiscal statement regarding VAT transactions changed
The Finance Ministry issued an Order for modifying the content of the statement that the companies which are VAT payer must deposit every month/trimester regarding the VAT transactions.
In addition to the data required by the old format of this statement, the Order obliges the companies to report a large number of transactions till now exempted, like the transactions with physical persons, the ones with foreign partners, the ones with partners applying special fiscal regimes (like tourism agencies), the ones based on fiscal bons, etc.
This statement will become a veritable challenge for bookkeepers, requesting IT and HR additional resources.
Macroeconomic indicators
RON / EUR ex-rate evolution
31.12.2011: 4.3197
30.12.2012: 4.4287
31.01.2013: 4.4847
31.12.2014: 4.4821
31.12.2015: 4.5245
31.01.2016: 4.5386
29.02.2016: 4.4634
31.03.2016: 4.4582
Inflation rate evolution
2011: 5.79 %
2012: 3.33 %
2013: 3.98 %
2014: 1.07 %
2015: – 0.90%
Jan. 2016 / Jan. 2015: -2.23%
Feb. 2016 / Feb. 2015: -2.68%
Tax deductible loan interest rate
RON: 1.75%
EUR: 4%