site.btaMay 13 is Bulgaria's Tax Freedom Day in 2018

Sofia, May 13 (BTA) - This Sunday is Tax Freedom Day in Bulgaria, the day on which people have theoretically settled their tax bills and can stop working for the government and start working for themselves, the Institute for Market Economics (IME) said. This is also the day on which the Exchequer would have been filled if everything produced by people was immediately paid to the government.

This year Bulgarians will make around 289 million leva on average per calendar day. The consolidated revenues officially set in the budget are 38.2 billion leva, which means that this year Bulgarians will work slightly over 132 days for the Exchequer.

Bulgarians will work the longest to fill the revenues from VAT (34 days), followed by those from social and health insurance contributions (32 days), excise duties (nearly 18 days), income taxes (nearly 12 days), corporate taxes (just over 8 days), and State and municipal taxes (nearly 8 days).

This year Tax Freedom Day comes later than in 2017 due to the serious difference between planned and implemented elements of last year's national budget. The GDP's higher nominal value and the much lower absorption rate of EU resources pushed Tax Freedom Day to a date earlier than the announced for 2017.

The trend in the last years has been towards a higher number of days of Bulgarian taxpayers working for the Exchequer, which translates into an increase of the tax burden in the country. Since the introduction of the flat tax in 2008, there have been no specific measures for reducing this burden. This year saw an increase of the insurance burden and of the excise duty on cigarettes, and these measures amount to some 450 million leva, i.e. this is the price of higher taxes in 2018, the IME explained.

The tax burden is distributed among all Bulgarians (including children, pensioners, etc.) but it is precisely the working people who carry the Exchequer's burden to the greatest extent: for them the tax burden is nearly 50 per cent, meaning that their Tax Freedom Day will be in late June, the IME said.