site.btaSmuggling, VAT Fraud Reach 2 to 2.5 Per Cent of GDP

Smuggling, VAT Fraud Reach 2 to 2.5 Per  Cent of GDP

Sofia, May 12 (BTA) - Smuggling and VAT fraud amount to around 2
to 2.5 per cent of Bulgaria's GDP, said parliamentary Internal
Security and Public Order Committee
Chair Atanas Atanassov at a roundtable discussion about the
financing of organized crime, held here on Tuesday.

Smuggling and VAT fraud inflict huge damage on the budget,
Atanassov said. In his words, interrupting the organized crime's
financial flows is one of the most effective methods to fight
it. The effective fight in this sphere will increase the
revenues in the budget and weaken the crime activities involved.
The strategy for counteractions in this respect should be
based on thorough knowledge of the phenomenon and its study,
particularly by the nongovernmental sector, and a proposal for
the legislation's improvement, Atanassov said.

A survey of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD), which
was presented on Tuesday, compares illegal and legal markets and
shows that they often use the same financial instruments. CSD
Chairman Ognian Shentov said that the illegal market is used by
functioning and, in many cases, well-managed criminal
enterprises. According to him, influencing these and limiting
illegal markets should be achieved with the same financial
instruments used in the case of legal markets.

Some of the survey's conclusions are that together with criminal
incomes, the legal financial sources play an important role in
the funding of organized crime, because criminal organizations
might need external financing at the start of their activity.
The funding of organized crime, however, rarely falls within the
"range of vision" of investigators and the prosecuting
magistracy, the CSD said.