About the tax evasion and the lower insurance income

Disclaimer:
This is a topic on which I haven’t written so far, but lately has started exciting me, after I decided to start my own company(that hasn’t happened yet, but the drive is still there). Also note, that this article is related to the economic situation in Bulgaria.

I guess everyone that has worked in the private sector(I don’t know what’s the situation in the state sector, but I really hope that things are correct there) is aware of part of the schemes that employers use in order to pay higher salaries to their employees and keep more profits for themselves. The most common method is to declare that the employee is being paid less than what they actually are and the rest is handed in cash.

This way the employer has to pay less for social security, healthcare and taxes. Since the employee currently pays 40% of the taxes and social security, they also “take advantage” of that opportunity and “lose” less of their actual net profit.

On the other hand, the negative consequences for both the individual and the whole country are significantly higher. To name a few:

Negative consequences for the employee:

  • Smaller salary during paid leave.
  • Smaller benefits during maternity leave and temporary disability.
  • Smaller benefits during unemployment.
  • Lesser chance and smaller size of credits.

Negative consequences for the whole country:
A smaller amount of money goes into the country’s treasure. That makes paying out pensions and benefits for pensioners and the people in need more difficult(not to say impossible). Which leads to the fact that some of the money in the budget have to be shuffled around and instead of them being used for other means like education, healthcare, etc. they are used to cover pensions and benefits.

Now, if this was occurring on a rather small scale, the consequences wouldn’t have been so big. The problem is that this is not the case.

Here comes the time to admit, that I totally understand why employees and workers come to breaking the low when we talk about industries where the actual salary is already low enough.

On the other hand, I can’t understand and I don’t justify this behavior in industries where the companies make profits that are big enough to allow them to pay for the actual amount of social security that they should be paying for. An example of such a branch is the IT sector for instance. I’m guessing that most of the IT companies in Bulgaria seek and find clients across the globe, including some wealthier countries(like the US, Great Britain, etc.), which allows them to offer competitive prices compared to the local market all while getting a considerably high income for Bulgaria. Even if some companies don’t work mainly with clients from abroad, some companies offer a pretty costly(for Bulgaria) prices for services like building a website for example. Under any circumstances if the company is managed good and it has well-trained personnel, realization is almost guaranteed.

I don’t have the exact numbers and I can’t certainly state that if most of the sectors with high incomes start reporting the actual income of their employees there will be a tangible change, but I’m very confident about it. Unfortunately most of the people in Bulgaria(and not only) strive aim at improvement on the personal level, instead of towards a global one – and for as long as that is the case, the chances of the situation improving here will be smaller and smaller.

While I know that one swallow does not a summer make, my personal intention is to pay the real social securities and taxes to anyone(including myself) that works for me(in that sense, I’m a terrible capitalist I know ). This way I’ll rest assured that I’ve fulfilled my part of my duties towards the people that have worked their share and the people that will start working tomorrow.

2 Moons

The 2 Moons

People have been using the phases of the Moon to keep track on time for many centuries. I don’t think it’s really common nowadays though In this post I’ll be generally referring to a “Moon” as one full lunar cycle(or approximately 29.5 days)

2 Moons is not a small amount of time, considering the amount of events(including life-changing ones, both globally and personally) that can(and DO) occur in this period. I feel I’m writing nonsense right now, so I’ll move on

About 2 Moons ago, me and my Love laid the foundations of a really strong spiritual(or sensuous) bond. None of us had any idea what it would turn into subsequently. We both kind of jumped into a relationship that wouldn’t make sense to most people(the circumstances were a bit complicated by that time). We just gave it a try and let our feelings run wild.

That was a good decision, maybe perhaps the best choice we’ve ever made. We got to know a lot about each other from the whole beginning of this relationship. We spent about 2 thirds or maybe even more of our first Moon living together – some of the time at her place(at that time), some of it at my place. We got really attached to each other, so attached in fact that at the end of our first Moon, we could barely spend time apart from each other.

She had plans for her near(and not so near ) future and I had none. That made it pretty easy for me to fit into her plans. She was moving to Istanbul at the beginning of September to continue her education in the best university in Turkey. So initially my idea was to spend half of the time here in Varna and half of it in Istanbul. But as I mentioned before by the end of the first Moon together, we could barely stay away from each other.

This required a change in my plans and luckily I’ve arranged my life in such a way that I can work from any place in the world as long as it has a good internet connection available. This gives me the freedom to change my location really really easy. So I decided to move in Istanbul with her. I googled for WordPress jobs in Istanbul and sent-out some emails to a couple of companies that were hiring WordPress experts. One of them(C2A) replied and we started working remotely together. Then when I went to Istanbul I worked a bit from their office and they were happy with my work and decided to hire me

Now we even have our own place in Istanbul – not really big, maybe not perfect, but cosy and ours.

It really amazes me how quickly one’s life can change completely. I’m ok with changes though(a friend of mine used to say that if someone that hasn’t seen you in a long time tells you that you’re the same, then there is something wrong with you). I think that they are an essential part of life – with every second we change more or less – and we should learn to accept changes(of course there are changes that should not just be accepted the way they are, but that’s a different topic).

I still don’t know if I believe in signs and whether things happen for a reason or not, but this whole thing seemed to be full of signs – I’m not going to share them here, but I definitely think there were signs indeed

I feel happy and complete. I feel absolutely lucky for having such an amazing(I don’t think there is a word strong enough to describe her, but this one works as well) girl.

Thank you Love, for sharing your life and love with me!

PP: Sorry for the lack of order in my thoughts, but that’s how things went out of my head – I’m not going to reorder them now that they’re out

And now what?!

And now what, when you don’t know?
And now what, when you’re stuck,
When you wonder and feel helpless,
When you can’t change the past, and the future is blurred?

What you do, when you feel, but you can’t say,
What you do, when you’ve loved for too long,
But you just can’t let go, although there ain’t no chance?
Do you turn grey again?

You’re stuck in the trap of your own feelings…
You have to wait for the miracle, or sacrifice yourself,
if you want to get out – there’s no other solution.
In the end “too much love will kill you” if you’re too much yourself…

Some thoughts

The timeless time, the endless nights, but still those are now in the past – just ghosts of memories wandering through my conciousness
The moments when time and space seemed to have distorted in such a manner, that seconds where like hours and hours were like… seconds
Strange things are human emotions – most of the time they seem to follow absolutely no logic – now, that’s a mistery that I can’t reveal no matter how much time and brain activity I will spend on it – it’s just beyond my reach
So the ghosts + memories + emotions = a time machine! Well not exactly a time machine in the way we’re used to think of, but still it’s something, because some memories are just captured with way too much emotions, making them a small “video tape” of events

Things happen (period) I don’t know if there is a “reason” behind( or maybe in front of :? ) everything, but honestly – I don’t care…

I just hate it when no matter of the bullet proof logic, shouting that something is not to be done this way, I just keep doing it – because there is something beyond logic, that is still strong enough to make the logic silent…

How much for Love?

What you’d do/give/loose to give Love a chance?

Perhpas this depends on how important Love is for you? Would you sacrifice something important, would you dare to do so?
Is it going to be worth it?

That’s where fear kicks in – fear from past experience – fear from being hurt – fear from being alone at the end again, and so on…
Well there is one thing that beats this kind of fear for me – every time! It’s another fear – fear of loosing an opportunity, or in other words the fear of the “what if…” situation This always(and by always, I mean always) makes the difference for me. Jumping into the depths of the unknown (or sometimes expected) requires more than a good will – you have to stand in front of your fears and beat them – something that is easier said than done…

So after all do you know your answer for this question?

It’s a good thing to know how far you can go.

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About the colorful

Преди да продължите да четете по-нататък, ви моля първо да прочетете “Сиво” на Светлозар Станчев, просто защото като си припомних творбата се роди идеята За цветното (Светлозар Станчев – Сиво)

За цветното

В природата на човек е, да бъде цветен. Или поне със сигурност е присъщо на децата.

Още за цветното…

Светлозар Станчев – Сиво

Сив град. Сиви улици. Сиви хора. Накъдето и да погледнеш – всичко е сиво. Сиви семейства със сиви деца.

Само ти си различен. Пъстър. Сивото те потиска и мъчи. Мъчиш се да го промениш. Но то е силно и упорито. И много. Просто не става. Страдаш и плачеш. То вижда това, но пак си остава просто сиво.

Изгубил всякаква надежда почваш да се оглеждаш. Нищо. И когато вече почти си се отказал я виждаш. И тя е пъстра като теб и естествено – красива. Просто е прекалено малка и затова не си я видял досега. И тя е в сивото.

Срещате се. Заживявате заедно. Но колкото повече живееш с нея ти става все по-ясно, че и тя е сива. А пъстра е само нейната дреха. Обвивката. Разгневен си и си отчаян и се скарвате. Скандалът е голям и разтърсващ. Но по време на него случайно минаваш покрай огледалото и се поглеждаш. И ти си станал сив.

Но това е нормално. Нали всичко около теб е сиво. За околните това не е нещо лошо.Те даже го смятат за щастие. Нали целият свят е сив. И ти вече си сив!

Светлозар Станчев, “Тротил” Варна 2002 г.

The Unborn Love

I sometimes think about, how close sometimes two lonely hearts are, but they never knew that, they spend some time “together”, crossing their sights from time to time, they get the feeling of something known, they smile in their thoughts, guess that it would be nice to get to know each other, but never actually do anything, and they probably won’t meet again… And there at this place, where their paths crossed sometimes lies one unborn love…

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