“România – the third largest supplier, from the European Unionof IT services in Singapore” Klaus Iohannis
Bucharest, April 8, 2023 – The Association for Information Technology and Communications (ATIC) draws attention to the negative effects generated by the implementation of the initiative to eliminate tax incentives for the IT field.
An increase in costs will also affect Romania’s digitization effort and destroy the most PERFORMING economic sector of the national economy!
What the decision-makers in Romania are forgetting:
-Any National Strategy is based on priorities; priority areas are stimulated through fiscal and/or financial instruments;
– The export-import balance must tend towards positive values;
-The level of development of a country is given by the level of value-added exports;
– The IT industry in Romania acts mainly for export – the domestic market being very narrow;
An elementary calculation shows that the imposition of a threshold (10,000 lei) above which to introduce the income tax, will create confusion by the fact that employees with a higher GROSS salary will end up having a NET salary, even 600 lei, lower than their colleagues below the imposed threshold.
The evaluation carried out by ATIC members shows that this initiative would lead to an additional effort by IT companies of at least 10% in increasing costs, but also a loss of employees, knowing that human resources in IT are very “volatile”.
In the conditions in which the whole of humanity is facing an acute shortage (shortage in IT professionals), specialists can very easily go to other countries or work “remotely” and get paid in any bank in the world.
We remind you that the Software and IT Services Industry:
– in the national GDP it reached 8.2% in the first quarter of 2023, significantly above the euro zone average of 4.8%, according to Eurostat data;
– had the best dynamics in recent years in 2022, being far above GDP growth;
– represents the second largest contribution to Romania’s total service exports, with an increase in the value of IT&service exports by 2.5 times in the last 5 years;
– has an annual growth rate of over 15%, three times faster than the national average;
– had a doubling of the number of employees in the last 6 years, according to the INS.
About the Association for Information and Communications Technology (ATIC):
Established since 1991, ATIC is the first IT association in Romania and represents Romania in more important international organizations: WITSA – World Information Technology and Services Alliance; CEPIS – Council of European Informatics Societies; IT STAR – regional Association on information technology in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe and holds the ECDL license for Romania
Contact: Alin NIȚĂ – President of the Association for Information and Communications Technology (ATIC)
email: alin.nita@atic.tarainteractive.com