Bulgarian Treasury with BGN 16 Billion VAT Hole Mind the horns!

The total amount of the overdue value added tax (VAT) for the period between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2017, established by the National Revenue Agency’s (NRA) audits, is over BGN 16.2 billion. This was announced by the Civil Movement “BOEZ” (Fighter) at a press conference. The NGO presented there an official reply from the NRA, received as a response to a request filed under the Access to Public Information Act (APIA).

To the same APIA request, the Ministry of Finance has responded that it did not have information about the uncollected VAT. According to the law, the Minister of Finance is required to exercise control over the activities of the NRA, thus he is acknowledging that he had committed a breach of office for not doing so. Vladislav Goranov is a second term finance minister and before that he was Deputy Minister of Finance for one term. Nevertheless, the NRA did send a detailed response to “BOEZ”. It is also important to note that this response is personally signed by the NRA Executive Director, Galiya Dimitrova, which means that there can be no doubt about the trustworthiness of the data.

Of the above amount, nearly BGN 6 billion is practically written off by the NRA as it deems that the possibility of it being collected is “minimal”.

According to Georgi Georgiev, Chairman of “BOEZ”, a thorough investigation by the competent authorities into this VAT evasion must be carried out, but he stresses that such probe would be impossible while the “present mafia-political establishment” remains in power and Sotir Tsatsarov is Prosecutor General.

Response of the NRA following a request by “BOEZ” under the APIA

The Movement further announced that their APIA request had been prompted by whistleblower investigator Boyko Atanassov, who was the first one to publically speak about the uncollected VAT issue. This is the same investigator who told Bivol about the Prosecutor General “special unit”, dealing with “wet work” to cover up crimes and corruption, and crushing the inconvenient.

The amount of uncollected VAT had been rising sharply during the rule of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, experts from “BOEZ” have established, after analyzing the data received from the NRA. This amount looks ominous against the backdrop of bankrupting hospitals, street rallies staged by different groups of society, miserable retirement pensions, and a total demographic collapse because of poverty and corruption. In fact, this money had been stolen from all Bulgarian taxpayers.

The breakdown by year

is indicative. For the 11 years between 2000 and 2010, the total amount of stolen VAT was BGN 1.4 billion. After GERB came to power, the picture changed abruptly. Only for 2011, the uncollected VAT is BGN 1.1 billion. This is also the year when GERB stole the reserve of the National Health Insurance Fund, Georgiev said. Again in 2011, the budget of the Ministry of the Interior was 999 million i.e. the stolen VAT was by BGN 100 million higher than this entire budget. In the following years, the robbery remained and kept its monstrous dimensions.

2012 – BGN 742,117,000,
2013 – BGN 548,125,000
2014 – BGN 510,991,000
-654 387 000 BGN
2016г. – 564 968 300 BGN

The figures clearly show that the only year when the amount fell to just over half a billion is 2014, the year when GERB was not in power. It sounds absurd because the short-lived socialist-endorsed government was corrupt as well, but the reduced VAT drain can be explained by the fact that the Mafia had been satisfied with the billions drained from the collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank during this same year.

It turns out that during GERB’s terms in office almost BGN 4.5 billion had been drained, which is three times more than the total amount for the 11 years prior to that.

According to economists, lawyers, and magistrates, such large-scale robbery would be impossible without the direct involvement and cover-up by the government. Let’s recall that only in its first term GERB appointed more than 20,000 civil servants and replaced the leadership of all institutions. The question is what the National Security Agency (DANS), the Interior Ministry, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Customs Agency have been doing all these years as the perpetrators remain unpunished, whereas, for just BGN 100 in unpaid VAT, the common Bulgarian is severely sanctioned.

So far, it is unclear how much more had been stolen through Customs schemes and fraud, and from public procurement and European Union funds.

“BOEZ” has submitted a subsequent request to the NRA under the APIA, asking for a list of companies and merchants involved in the criminal VAT evasion schemes.

Peevski’s people are evading VAT and other taxes

Bivol has authentic and reliable information that companies headed by strawmen of controversial lawmaker and media mogul Delyan Peevski have been persecuted for years by the NRA for failing to pay VAT and other taxes related to their activities.

According to the documents available to us, these strawmen deal with publishing and advertising activities in the field of ownership and management of influential print media. These media companies have been stubbornly refusing to respond to the numerous invitations from the NRA. In addition, they are not paying social security and health insurance contributions, social security tax, pension insurance and penalties and there is virtually no power in the State to force the media from Peevski’s circle to pay their debts or declare bankruptcy.

We publish below a sample of the NRA’s official notice sent to a media from this circle. We have deleted specific names to preserve our source, but we are willing to validate the data and provide detailed information if necessary.

Warnings and an invitation from the NRA to a media from Peevski’s circle to pay taxes overdue for years

The media of the power ignore the VAT

At the entrance of the building, where the press conference was held, the members of “BOEZ” were welcomed by thugs on duty who threw eggs at them. This has become a trademark measure against the activities of the Movement and of other citizens who dare to demonstrate public resistance to the regime in the country.

#WHO will be held responsible?

Today, Wednesday, March 21, 2018 “BOEZ” will file a claim with the Prosecutor’s Office against Vladislav Goranov and Prime Minister and GERB leader Boyko Borisov for abuse of office and mismanagement resulting in huge damages to the State.

In the coming days, the prosecution will receive similar claims against all finance ministers, NRA bosses and prime ministers after 2000.

On Friday, “BOEZ” will also address President Rumen Radev on the issue and will insist on the convening of the National Security Advisory Council. The European Commission will be officially notified at the beginning of next week as well.

There were no representatives of the public radio and TV and of the Treasury at the press conference.

***

If you find this article useful, support our work with a small donation.

Pay a Bivol Tax!

We will highly appreciate if you decide to support us with monthly donations keeping the option Monthly