During the period February – March 2009, the USAID Business Regulatory and Tax Administration Reform Project, carried out an opinion poll among 1200 accountants from Cahul, Chisinau, Orhei and Balti regions. The study was carried out aiming at finding out the opinion of the accountants about the reporting process and at estimating the total time necessary for the reporting activity.
Furthermore, information has been found out about the number of reports submitted to all institutions, the frequency of visits to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), State Tax Inspectorate (STI) and the Territorial House of Social Insurance (CNAS); reports considered by the accountants inefficient etc. The Study points out several solutions considered by the accountants timely for the reduction of the reporting burden. Among these are: the electronic reporting, reporting by fax, by post, automatization of accounting programmes and submission of reports before the deadline. The results of this study have been presented on Wednesday, 20 May, within a round table, hosted by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry from Balti.
The event gathered representatives of governmental agencies (STI, NBS, CNAS) from Balti, Singerei, Falesti and Glodeni, as well as representatives of the business environment, in particular accountants, from these regions. Within the framework of the event, the participants discussed the results of the study and have exposed their vision with regard to the opportunities of reporting process improvements proposed by the author of the study.
Mihai Bologan, expert of the USAID|BIZTAR project, mentioned during the presentation that an accountant services on average more than two companies, if it is from Chisinau or Balti, and the majority of the others service a single company. Moreover, the results of the study show that an accountant looses annually a month of work exclusively on reporting during the year and over 80% of the reports are filled in manually. One of the important conclusions of the study is that the submission of reports constitutes 40% of the reporting burden.
Oleg Grigoroi, expert of USAID|BIZTAR mentioned that the USAID|BIZTAR project has identified solutions that would significantly reduce the reporting burden: Automatization, E-reporting, Rapidity (AER). The project experts consider that these solutions are viable, because the Automatization will reduce the time for the data collection and to fill in the report, improving the quality of the information; the E-reporting shall eliminate the time and expenditures for travelling to the report submission office, and the Rapidity shall reduce the time spent in line and in the office.
According to the study, 40% of the accountants mentioned that 36 reports, among which the reports 5-C, TAT07 and 1-trade, are inefficient, because are difficult, represent overlap of data and are frequent. Most of the respondents (83%) consider that the reports on local taxes shall be consolidated in a single one. As regards to the improvement of the reporting process, the accountants consider that the one-stop shop office of receiving reports and the exchange of data among the authorities are the best solutions.
Referring to the solutions proposed in order to make reporting more efficient the participants to the round table from Balti had different opinions. Tatiana Neghina, Head of the Balti STI, mentioned that the Tax Inspectorate from Balti is opened to the introduction of the one-stop shop principle with regard to reporting. Thus, the economic agents could submit reports for CNAS, NBS and STI in the same place, saving thus time and money. Valeriu Muduc, Head of STI Singerei does not consider the automatization a solution, since most of the accountants from the rural regions do not know how to use a computer and will prefer to prepare the annual reports manually. He considers also that the often visits to the tax inspectorates shall not be a burden, since in this way the accountants are getting informed.
Eleonora Balan, Head of the General Division of taxpayers evidence, CNAS, considers that e-reporting is a very good solution, as CNAS encourages the economic agents to submit reports in electronic format and this practice reduces significantly the time in the reporting process. The USAID|BIZTAR study showed that over 50% of the interviewed accountants are connected to Internet, and at least 80% have fax machines, at the same time two thirds of them use accounting programmes, which would allow them to use more intensely the new reporting possibilities, such as e-declarations at the STI or reporting by fax to the NBS.
The accountants present at the event mentioned that they welcome the initiatives of simplification of the business reporting process and mentioned that it is necessary for the public institutions to periodically inform the economic agents from the regions about the need and purpose of certain reports, as well as about the changes that intervene in the reporting process.
The discussion regarding business reporting with the participation of entrepreneurs, representatives of the central and territorial governmental agencies will take place also in the cities of Orhei, Cahul, Edinet and Chisinau. The presentations are part of the objective of the USAID | BIZTAR project to make sensitive the opinion of the entrepreneurs with regard to the need to improve the reporting process and to reduce the time necessary for this activity.