“The idea of a bonus against whistle-blowing will not have a significant effect on increasing tax collection.” Economist Mihail Krastev, who is a member of the Council for Economic and Public Policies, commented on this to “BTV Radio” regarding the proposal of Finance Minister Asen Vasilev for bonuses in exchange for information about hidden taxes or insurance.
“I doubt it would have any significant effect in terms of tax collection and therefore the revenue part of the budget, which is obviously the goal set by the finance ministry.” In any case, the collection rate in Bulgaria is high compared to other European countries, and this is mainly due to the simplified tax system, the flat tax, the until recently uniform rate for indirect taxes, especially for VAT. Unfortunately, this flat rate is not so flat any more, which brings a bit of confusion to the tax system, but I don’t think the collection could be raised by such measures.
It is as if we transfer the responsibility from the revenue agency, which has both the resources and the obligation to carry out tax audits and, accordingly, to monitor the correct payment of taxes and the high collection in the treasury, we transfer it to the citizens, who must with their own observations, without these resources, without knowledge, without even the proper motivation, since the payment of a bonus in return for information could not be called a socially beneficial motivation, the onus is placed on the citizens to become some form of private tax detectives and whistleblowers their fellow citizens. Let’s stick to established practices, which are the revenue agencies and other responsible ones doing their job, making sure there is no tax evasion and ultimately if they can’t cope, making the necessary legislative changes so that they do the job,” believes Mihail Krastev.
“These extravagant ideas are only the symptoms of something that is going on as a process behind the scenes, which is that the Bulgarian budget, especially in the revenue part, is threatened by non-fulfilment, and accordingly, in colloquial language, we could say that we are increasingly moving towards thunder of the budget”, commented the economist.
