Bulgaria opposes the plan of Berlin and Paris for tax unification

Diana Iossifova
diana.iossifova@ klassa.bg

Valentin Georgiev
valentin.georgiev@ klassa.bg


EU tax unification is not a good economic and financial policy. Therefore, Bulgaria will strongly oppose this idea. This was stated by the Deputy Prime Minister, Simeon Djankov on his arrival in Brussels for a meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN). Thus, our country declared itself against one of the key points of the so-called EU Competitiveness Pact of Germany and France, presented earlier this month. It contains several basic measures, including raising the retirement age, eliminating the indexation of salaries depending on inflation rates, imposing limits on the amount of national debt which should be legally regulated in EU member-states and harmonisation of the tax base for the calculation of corporate taxes. Let us remind our readers that in his lecture to students last week, Simeon Djankov, stated: "The Government of Bulgaria is against the common EU tax policy but is not alone in its standpoint. Our opposition camp, albeit a minority, is also joined by the UK."

MEP, Ivaylo Kalfin appealed to Bulgaria to adopt another idea set forth by Germany and France through the Covenant in question. It should refer to the mutual recognition of diplomas and professional qualification certificates in order to promote the free movement of people.

Economist and Programme Director at the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Georgi Ganev defended before Klassa the standpoint of the Finance Minister. "From an accounting perspective, i.e. in terms of doing business, it is more appropriate for uniform rules to be imposed for the calculation of the tax base for determining the payable corporation tax. However, I definitely think that there must be no unification of tax rates. The problem is that the synchronisation of rules, according to some people, will inevitably lead to pressure for alignment of the tax rates themselves. Actually, in terms of Bulgaria, Simeon Djankov's standpoint is completely understandable. We have one of the lowest rates and, therefore, we can only lose from tax unification," explained the expert.

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