December 20 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian caretaker transport minister Hristo Aleksiev said that Lukoil Neftochim Burgas, part of the European arm of Russia's Lukoil and operator of Bulgaria's sole oil refinery, has made an advance corporate tax payment of 90 million levs ($48.8 million/46 million euro), private broadcaster bTV reported on Tuesday.
The payment was made after the company's board approved last week the transfer of the refinery's financial operations to Bulgaria from the Netherlands, bTV quoted Aleksiev as saying.
The amount covers corporate tax owed by the company as well as 73 million levs in taxes under a recently adopted levy of 33% on windfall profits of fossil fuel companies applicable in 2022 and 2023, public radio BNR reported.
Last month, the Bulgarian caretaker government and the company agreed that it will move its financial operations to Bulgaria from the start of 2023, which is expected to contribute between 600 million and 700 million levs in revenue to the state budget next year.
Bulgaria, along with Hungary and Slovakia, benefits from an exemption from a EU-wide ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude oil and export of refined products made from it. The ban came into force on December 5 as part of sanctions imposed on Russia over its war on Ukraine.
Last week, the EU Commission adopted its ninth package of sanctions against Russia and allowed Bulgaria to export to Ukraine diesel products refined locally from imported Russian crude oil.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
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