SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES IN 2010
16.03.2010
Crown Agents Continues to Organise and Deliver Specialised Training Events Aimed at Enhancement of State Revenue Collection
In 2010 Crown Agents continues to deliver specialised training events for National Customs Agency (NCA) and National Revenue Agency (NRA) staff, which are aimed at enhancement of the administrations\' capacity to protect state revenue and combat frauds.
The advisors organised introductory training courses on systems based audit and basic audit techniques for members of the NCA Post Clearance Control units in Burgas and Varna. These courses are part of a series of training events for NCA staff, delivered in the past few months, which included ship awareness training to provide officers with basic rummage techniques and a specialised course, designed for recently appointed Leaders of the Customs Mobile Assurance Teams (MATs).
Crown Agents provided advice and guidance to the customs mobile teams during exercises held in Lessovo, Gyueshevo, Kalotina, Kapitan Andreevo and Varna.
Practical assistance was also provided to the NRA staff, engaged in the winter tax compliance campaign, which is currently underway in the national ski resorts.
Since the beginning of 2010 Crown Agents has delivered to the NRA four reports on previous training courses, a targeted supermarket compliance exercise in Sofia and Plovdiv, the Value Added Tax (VAT) registration pilot initiative and on Information Technology improvements.
The advisors also submitted to the Ministry of Finance the master schedule of recommendations, including status reports on the implementation position of each recommendation as at 31st December 2009.
Project implementation was reviewed at two high-level meetings in February 2010 - the Programme Management Council in the Ministry of Finance and the wider Programme Stakeholder Committee.
Among the areas discussed by the Programme Management Council were the Fiscal Crime Coordination Group, Large Excise Taxpayers initiative, Ministry of Finance Inspectorate anti corruption work and MAT work.
The Programme Stakeholder Committee, chaired by Crown Agents\' Programme Director, Vivienne Davies, was attended by a large number of representatives from the revenue agencies and the Head of the Cabinet of the Minister of Finance, Rumen Porozhanov. The members of the Committee discussed and accepted the last Quarterly Report on the implementation of Phase II of the Programme for Modernisation of Bulgarian Financial Administration.
Crown Agents\' Team Leader, John Brown, gave a presentation on the advisors\' current activities, which was followed by a discussion on requests for additional assistance from some of the agencies.