ANALYSIS
fine issuance as well as instructional material to help
companies increase their compliance, and eliminating
incentives for inspectors to increase collections;
Reforms are needed to increase transparency
and oversight of company appeal mechanisms.
To avoid creating a business environment where companies are considered guilty before being proven
innocent, complaint and appeal mechanisms must be
consistent, transparent and efficient. Thus, reform is
needed to prevent abuse of companies by individual
inspectors by increasing the transparency of institutional handling of company complaints and ensuring best
practices are being applied;
Reforms are needed to ensure taxation and penalty policies are rational and fair. Currently, a tiny
portion of the business community bears an extremely
high portion of the tax burden. The economy’s tax burden should be shared across all sectors in a more even
fashion, to prevent reducing the competitiveness of
certain sectors. Thus, AmCham recommends that the
country’s tax structure be reviewed and reformed with
the aim of spreading the country’s tax burden as evenly
as possible.
Reforms are needed to encourage internships in companies.
A more liberal approach is required
to encourage a practice that imparts
critical employability skills on workers and helps companies find the most qualified people for the job. The
current regulatory approach is overly rigid; encourages
superficial internships and forgeries; and unnecessarily
depresses the number of quality internships offered in
the country. Companies need a clear legal framework
to guide their engagement of interns. Such a framework should include details such as the form of contract, maximum duration, remuneration, insurance, etc.
Macedonia’s current Labor Law is out of sync with its
Law on Higher Education on the subject of internships.
Reforms are needed to ensure strategic investments in educational quality. Investments in public education have largely been limited to improvements
in physical infrastructure and opening new schools and
universities. While this is a very necessary activity in a
country with aging public education infrastructure, public
investment is equally needed in teacher training and the
introduction of modern teaching texts and other learning materials. This is particularly necessary in technical
and vocational education institutions, which are meant
to produce tangible skills that are mean to align with the
local labor market.
... reform is needed to prevent abuse of
companies by individual inspectors...
January Salaries Often Late
At the end of each January, payroll professionals across Macedonia nervously await data from the Macedonian State Statistical Office.This is because they need the previous calendar year’s average gross salary (AGS) as a basis for calculating
gross salary payments in the new calendar year. Since 2009, Macedonian Law does not allow salaries to be paid without
their corresponding social contributions.
Since 2009, the AGS figure was released between January 27-30th. For companies that usually pay their employees on the
last day of the month, this has caused delays in January salary payments. To avoid this, companies are given the option
to pay gross salaries based on estimated AGS, but doing so means submitting a correction to the Public Revenue Office
once the official data are released, not to mention employee confusion.
To avoid payroll delays and an unnecessary administrative burden on companies year after year, the State Statistical
Office simply needs to find a way to release this data point sooner!
Winter 2016
Issue 48 19