Almost daily, each employer faces decisions which may have an impact more significant than a potential sanction or an additionally assessed liability by the revenue authorities and should thus evaluate their approach, also taking into account factors such as:

• Their image as an employer of choice who cares for their employees and ensures that all legislative requirements are met and exceeded
• In an environment where there is a high demand for talented individuals with specific skills (particularly in the technology and outsourcing sectors), there is a significant competition for attracting and preserving such employees and, therefore, an increased demand to provide a more detailed scope of services which ensures that the employees are covered and assisted with respect to tax and insurance matters professionally and in due course
• Their ability to ensure highest level of confidentiality on matters involving remuneration and thus be able to limit leakages of information and respectively potential head hunting activities from competitors
• Being an EU Member State with a low corporate and personal income tax rate, Bulgaria has become a hub for the shared service activities and production centres of a number of multinationals whose operations often exceed the available labour resources on the local market and thus requires the “import” of foreign talents. In order to be able to attract such professionals and to arrange that they may join the company within the timeframe required by the business needs, the company should be able to secure that the tax and insurance status and implications arising for these employees are analysed and handled accurately and in due course. Having in mind the trend towards increased intra-EU reporting of income received by EU nationals, this is expected to become more of a hot topic in the near future.
• Managing the payroll and the employment-related tax and social security matters is not a stand-alone activity. Each decision taken has a multiplication effect on other areas such as finance and operations and should thus be reviewed from these aspects as well.

This increased demand for more focused all inclusive, technologically improved and multidisciplinary services is, however, often placed under certain business restrictions such as:

• To ensure that these activities are handled with the least administrative burden to the company’s administrative staff thus allowing them to focus on their core business 
• To ensure prompt reaction, available action plan to cover all alternatives and successful implementation 
• To ensure cost-efficiency.

This is a tough challenge to meet, which requires a trusted partner with extensive knowledge and practical experience in such matters. 

We have extensive experience and the technological tools to provide wide-ranging and multidisciplinary personal income tax and social security-related services:

HR administration services

• Assisting with drafting employment contracts, addendums and termination documents based on pre-approved templates   
• Storing and maintaining of the employee files of the company   
• Assisting with preparation and maintenance of various statutory registers/ledgers

Personal income tax and social security planning and advice

• Planning of complex assignment structures in terms of personal income tax and social security effects   
• Assisting with their practical implementation, e.g. assistance with drafting assignment letters, secondment agreements as well as mobility policies

Global Mobility Services

• Holding consultation sessions with inbound and outbound expatriates upon initiation of assignment and repatriation  
• Assisting with the preparation and submission of the expatriate’s tax returns   
• Handling communication with the revenue authorities with respect to the processing of the tax returns   
• Assisting with issuance of various certificates, e.g. certificates for taxes paid and tax residence certificates

Tax litigation and tax audit assistance

• Assisting in personal income tax and social security audits, including   handling communication with the audit team  
• Appealing assessment acts issued in the area of personal income tax and social security   
• Providing support to companies in subsequent litigation processes   
• Providing litigation support to individual expatriates whose tax status or tax standing for a particular year (as reported in the person’s annual Bulgarian personal income tax return) has been challenged

Tax reviews

• Reviewing internal procedures and controls affecting the payroll processes   
• Reviewing a sample number of monthly payslips  
• Reviewing the statutory reports/declarations submitted to the authorities   
• Performing interviews of the HR/payroll team