11.11.2013

Lowering the administrative burden and the costs for businesses and citizens, encouraging economic development, investments and employment, and increasing budget revenues, these are the main priorities of our tax policy for the period 2014-2016, Deputy Minister of Finance Lyudmila Petkova stated at the press conference held at the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to present the tax policy and tax legislation in the medium term.

  The MoF vision for the period is based on maintaining the low tax rates of corporate and natural persons\' income taxes as an important stimulus for investments, economic growth and employment, and the increase of the rates for some excise goods in line with the European tax legislation requirements. The changes in the tax legislation for 2014 relate to the implementation of legislative measures on the main priorities of the tax policy. The changes adopted are also related to improving the legislation to facilitate its enforcement and to bringing national legislation in line with EU law taking account of the directives and the Court\'s case law.

  For 2014 the following legislation has been amended: Tax and Social Insurance Procedure Code, Excise Duties and Tax Warehouses Law, Value Added Tax Law, Corporate Income Tax Law, Law on the Taxes on the Income of Natural Persons, and the Local Taxes and Fees Law. Deputy Minister Petkova explained in detail the amendments to those laws and the priorities of the Government underlying them, and specified that the National Assembly had not yet adopted the amendments to the Tax and Social Insurance Procedure Code pertaining to the fiscal control over the movement in the territory of the country of high fiscal risk goods. In her detailed presentation the Deputy Minister of Finance emphasized again that the amendments aimed at ensuring macroeconomic and budget stability in the medium and long term.

Lyudmila Petkova commented also on the implementation of the budget revenue side and stressed that the slow-down in the past months had been overcome. The VAT refunded to companies in July, August and September amounted to BGN 1.7 billion. Deputy Minister Petkova pointed out for the sake of comparison that in 2012 the VAT refund on the average was BGN 430-480 million per month. At the moment the businesses may rely on regular VAT refunds. The measures to improve revenue collection taken by the MoF at the beginning of June are already giving results.

You can see details of the presentation of Deputy Minister Petkova here.