site.btaRevenue Agency Finds 350 Out of 1,000-Plus Businesses in Mountain Resorts Misreported Revenues

National Revenue Agency (NRA) checks on over 1,000 businesses in Bulgaria's mountain resorts have found that 350 restaurants, shops and hotels in Bansko, Razlog, Dobrinishte, Banya, Borovets, Smolyan and Pamporovo have misreported their revenues, the NRA said. Checks by Fiscal Control officers started on January 3 and will continue until the end of the winter tourist season.

The inspectors identified violations such as failure to issue receipts, discrepancies between the amounts registered in a business's fiscal device and cash in the register, irregularities in sales documentation and errors in VAT calculation. As a result, 332 businesses were issued administrative statements of violations, 36 are pending sanctions, and 44  are subject to closure.

As of January 1, the VAT rate for restaurants returned to the pre-pandemic 20%, up from 9%.

As part of the checks, tax officers conducted on-site inspections, during which they identified themselves and monitored a business's operations for several days, tracking revenue and comparing it with previous sales data.

Inspections using a mystery shopper found that some businesses were not issuing receipts. In 49 establishments, customers were not issued receipts. The NRA said that under the VAT Act, customers have the right to withhold payment until a receipt is issued.

The NRA encouraged citizens to monitor businesses' revenue reporting through the mobile application, NRA Mobile, which allows users to scan the QR code on receipts. The app can be downloaded from the App Store for iOS devices and Google Play for Android devices.

Failure to issue receipts, fraudulent payment documents and other tax and social security violations can be reported via NRA's Information Center hotline at 0700 18 700 or via email at infocenter@nra.bg.