[size=75:ozu860e3]Focus 29 March 2010

Luxury tax will be imposed, but it will differ from initial discussions: participants in tripartite council


A luxury tax will be imposed, but it will differ from the initial discussions. The news was announced after Monday’s meeting of the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation.
Bulgarian Industrial Association Chairman Bozhidar Danev said the tax would be paid according to the tax evaluation of a property of 250 square meters in downtown Sofia. If the tax evaluation of your property is equal to or higher than this one, your tax will double. Cars will be taxed in a similar way. There will be a schedule according to which the state will pay its debts to private companies by the end of the first half of the year. All social measures have been approved. All social payments are transferred from the National Social Security Institute to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. The people who do not pay their health insurance contributions will have their property and income they receive from their property taxed.
Revenues from privatization and a 10% drop in expenses on state administration are the main measures designed to collect more revenues in the national budget.
BGN 450 million could be saved if the administrative expenditure is slashed by 10%, said Ivo Prokopiev with the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria.
The sides in the discussion have agreed on a new mechanism for calculating the minimum monthly salary, but it is not expected to rise.
The package of measures under discussion does not envisage for public servants to pay their social security contributions.