site.btaLow-Education Workers Most Often Agree to Envelope Wage - National Revenue Agency

Workers with lower education most often agree to "envelope wage", and employers who pay this way are small and less often medium and large enterprises, according to the National Revenue Agency (NRA). The revenue agency last week held a roundtable on Envelope Wage with the participation of the Ministries of Finance and of Labour, the National Social Insurance Institute, the General Labour Inspectorate (GLI), behavioural economist Dr Jan Schmitz from Radboud University, the Netherlands, and Dr Philipp Döhrenberg of the Centre for European Economic Research in Germany, experts from employers' organization and trade unions, and accountants.  

NRI inspectors and the labour authorities have checked a total of 516 companies looking into the employment contracts with their workers and how they comply with tax and social security legislation. The inspected employers have been identified as risky, following complaints against them and observations by the control authorities due to suspicions that they hired workers without a contract. Often in such enterprises, employees sign a 4-hour contract, work 8 hours or are insured for a minimum wage while they are really paid twice as much, most of it going undeclared.

GIT director Ekaterina Assenova said that the "envelope wage" undermines the future of the workers and the functioning of many important social systems.

A worker who receives BGN 1,500 but his employer officially declares paying him only a minimum wage, will lose nearly BGN 109,000, said Antonia Ivanova, Director of the NRA Communications Directorate. She demonstrated to the participants in the roundtable a loss calculator available on www.zaplatavplik.bg.