The Government Emergency Ordinance No. 8/2015 on amending and supplementing Government Emergency Ordinance No. 28/1999 regarding the obligation of traders to use electronic cash machines are to be modified in order to eliminate the provisions relating to taxation of the tip and will be sent to the Senate for approval, entering the Senate plenary debate. Subsequently will be subject to approval by the Chamber of Deputies and then promulgated by the president and published in the Official Gazette.
Since the publication in the Official Gazette, the ordinance in the modified form will take effect, but up to that date, the current provisions are still applicable.
The current provisions establish that “the tip represents any amount of money provided voluntarily by the client, in addition to the value of the goods delivered or services rendered by the operators (….) as well as the rest given by the seller to the client and not taken by it voluntarily. Tipping cannot be considered a delivery of goods or provision of services. Also, it will be banned for the economic operators to condition, in any form, the supply of goods or services by granting the tip.”
The proposed taxation aims for:
– taxation of the tip as profit of the economic operator, if it is not distributed to the employees (16% or 3% for micro enterprises);
– tips are not included in the area of the VAT
– taxation from the employee’s income tax with 16% from other sources, by withholding, if the tip is distributed to employees;
– the tips are not included in the taxable amount of social contributions and social health contributions – so non taxation from this point of view of social contributions.
Economic operators shall establish by an internal regulation if the collection of the revenue from the tips remains at their disposal, or constitute a source of other income that is distributed to employees. The regulation is kept at the installation of the electronic scoring device in order to be presented to the fiscal control bodies. The amounts resulted from tips are recorded in the accounting as other incomes and the amounts distributed to employees are recorded on the expenses account, according to the applicable accounting regulations.