site.btaTrade Unions Reiterate Suggestions for Changes to Tax System

July 19 (BTA) - Confederation of Independent Trade Unions
 in Bulgaria (CITUB) Chair Plamen Dimitrov reiterated on Friday
suggestions for nine measures that would change the Bulgarian
tax system. He took part in a round table, titled "The Tax
System in Bulgaria: Trends, Challenges, Opportunities",
organized by the CITUB.

CITUB wants the introduction of tax threshold equal to the
effective minimum salary. Next, the maximum contributory income
should be increased gradually, from the current 3,000 leva to
ten times the effective minimum salary. The next proposals are
to have a minimum tax threshold for young families, "wealth tax"
 on second homes, luxury cars and other expensive possessions,
and a tax on financial transactions. Still other proposals are
for increasing the tax on income from dividends to 10 per cent,
from the current 5 per cent, taxation of significant digital
presence, corporate tax based on "total consolidate basis of
taxation", and incentives through the elements of the direct
taxes.

According to CITUB calculations, the implementation of the
proposed measures will cost the state budget 1.6 billion leva.

Vassil Velev, Chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital
Association's Governing Board, also took part in the round
table, where he told journalists that the proposal for family
income taxation should be taken into consideration by the
government.

Velev noted that having family taxation could be one of the many
 measures to address what he described as Bulgaria's biggest
current problem, the demographic crisis. In his words, this is
also a major economic issue of importance for fast economic
development.

"Tax reforms, if such are necessary, should be discussed two
years ahead," Velev noted. He added that in the current
government term, it has already been declared that no tax
reforms will be made, which is why the business counts on tax
stability. IG,RY/TH

/TH/