State Labor Inspection of Bashkortostan held a poll about “salaries in envelopes”

51% of people, taking part in the questioning, reported that they received official salaries, 23% of the participants said they received official salaries just partially and 13% - only “in envelopes”. Taking the fact that almost the same number of the respondents refused to answer into account, the picture turned out to be rather sad. Every third worker, taking part in the questioning, is paid “in envelope” either partially or fully.

“The workers don’t think about consequences when they agree to be paid “in envelopes” – the head of the State Labor Inspection department in Bashkortostan Irina Svintitskaya commented the results of the interrogation – “Since when they received “enveloped salaries”, it means that many social payments, such as doles, maternity benefits, attendance allowances etc will be calculated only from the sum of the official wage. And if the wage is completely unofficial, it means that the employer didn’t register the labor relations with the workers. Thereby the worker turns out to be deprived not just of the abovementioned allowances but of the official salaries too, since in case the corresponding documents are absent it is difficult and often impossible to prove the fact of labor relations and the amount of the sums owing even in the court. Besides, I have to remind that when helping the employers to hide the salaries from taxation, the workers become the violators of the tax legislation themselves, because they conceal their incomes from the personal income tax. Unfortunately, the practice of paying salaries going against the law is widely popular among employers and the authorities still fail to extirpate it and while the workers are agree to be paid so, their salaries will further remain “grey”, “black” or “in envelopes”.