A new phenomenon was born by the financial crisis. New millionaires, in their late 20s, officially declare additional income of over BGN 1 million.
It remains unclear what kind of activities brought these earnings, National Radio announced. Report concerns physical entities, not companies or large consortiums. Bank experts, consultants, show producers, persons of independent means, people with high royalties under contracts for management and control of trade companies are the new moneybags.
According to data, provided by the National Revenue Agency (NRA), 5 Bulgarian citizens have declared additional sums of over BGN 10 million in their tax papers for 2009. The top three in the list have a total income of BGN 48 million, one of them filled in a ‘legally acquired’ annual income of BGN 17 million.
‘I am not going to argue that some cases look oddly and lead to certain conclusions’, Rossen Buchvarov, Head of Communications department of NRA said. ‘It looks weird when a 25-year old consults a big company for a fee of 1.5 million while, according to a contract, they are obliged to submit a concept consisting of 20-30 pages’, he added. ‘This might look weird to institutions with subject of activity such as money laundry, but to the NRA it is an officially declared income and relevant taxes are paid. No doubt, there are some young and wealthy decent people and others, who are rather suspicious’, he explained.
Loan granting on paper is another phenomenon. According to the NRA, fictitious loans exceed BGN 1 billion for the past two years. This practice reflected in some legislation changes. Citizens are now obliged to declare loans exceeding BGN 10 000. The rich, however, have learned a new trick – instead of explaining the origin of their luxurious toys, they simply claim that posh cars, yachts and diamonds have been ‘endowed’.
Inspections on some bank accounts are about to start in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. A meeting between the NRA Director Krassimir Stefanov with his German colleague will take place on 5 March. The occasion is an access to a data CD, which contains information about secret bank accounts in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. The German state acquired it from anonymous hacker for the sum of Euro 2.5 million and will provide this information for free. 17 owners of Swiss bank accounts already contacted the tax authorities, asking what legal actions will be undertaken against people with such deposits. Inspectors were explicit that, taken alone, a bank account in Switzerland cannot be considered a crime as long as the money in it is legally earned.
‘Our goal is to acquire information, whether officially or not. We need to check if all these deposit holders have legal source of income and, what is more important, if they have paid their taxes’, Rossen Buchvarov explained. ‘If not, they should face all legal consequences. This has nothing to do with confidentiality. Either way, the German state has already bought this information at the razor’s edge. It could be stolen. We cannot use it as legal evidence but, based on it, we can initiate inspections and auditing.
As per the agreement for data exchange between Bulgaria, Switzerland and Lichtenstein, when there is evidence for a crime committed by a Bulgarian citizen, we have various means to receive confirmation from these countries.
Over 4 000 Bulgarian citizens have deposits in banks abroad. According unofficial source, these foreign assets are estimated to Euro 150-300 million.
Text: frognews.bg
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