SOFIA (Bulgaria), January 23 (SeeNews) – More than 1.2 billion litres of diesel fuel per year, or 36.2% of the entire amount traded in Bulgaria per annum, are not declared to the country's revenues authorities, the finance ministry said on Friday.
The annual average amount of diesel fuel consumed in Bulgaria, and then declared to the National Revenue Agency and the National Customs Agency, was 2.2 billion litres over a three-year period. Yet the actual amount consumed over this period was 3.4 billion litres, the ministry said, quoting analysis from the two institutions, without disclosing the period concerned.
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Bulgaria's losses from undeclared taxes and liquid fuel are estimated to average between 1.1 billion levs ($638.5 million/562.5 million euro) and 1.2 billion levs per year.
The analysis assessed the risk of evasion of excise and value-added taxes, corporate taxes and income taxes for individuals for the supply and sale of liquid fuel in the country.
The analysis shows that the agriculture and transport sectors, which are the top consumers of diesel fuel in Bulgaria, were also the leading industries in terms of undeclared supplies, accounting for 48.1% and 34.5% respectively.
Earlier this week, Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borisov said Bulgaria has the potential to collect 600 million levs to 1 billion levs from value-added tax (VAT) fraud this year, tax concealment and from the grey sector.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)