Ginka Tchavdarova, Executive Director of the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB): More and more local governments collect the waste tax from businesses on the basis of the amount of waste

- Mrs. Tchavdarova, NAMRB announced that, this year, only about 10% of municipalities have increased the amount of local taxes, and mainly the waste tax. Would you comment on this information?

- Indeed, this year, only a few municipalities have decided to increase local taxes because they may have taken into account the current economic situation - the economic crisis, the unemployment rate and wages, etc.

- Nevertheless, Varna and Plovdiv are among the municipalities which increased local taxes?

- Yes, but these are big cities where the environment is more favourable, compared to the rest of the country - both in terms of unemployment and wage levels. The population there is more solvent. Therefore, these two cities can afford such a thing. Another major factor in the decision to increase taxes is the drastic delay in tax rates, taxes on waste, kindergartens, etc.

Another group of factors is related to those municipalities which have not updated their taxes for years. In this respect, the size of the waste tax is very typical, since, as of 2013, deductions that municipalities should make for the disposal of waste will be doubled - from BGN 7 to BGN 15 per tonne.

- At the same time, representatives of businesses and employers' organisations have long urged that companies pay the waste tax on the basis of the quantity of waste and not according to the tax assessment of the buildings in which they operate. Besides Kavarna, has such a method been introduced elsewhere?

- In Plovdiv, for example, where the tax has been increased, but it is lower for legal persons and companies, compared to citizens and residential properties.

In practice, in most cases the tax was transferred, in some form, proportionally to businesses and it was paid by them. Moreover, the big problem with this tax comes from multi-storey residential construction which is typical for big cities, of course.

Now, the situation is different - almost half of the towns and villages - not just municipalities but settlements within their borders, have reduced the tax for legal persons, which is determined by the amount of waste generated. This is done by measuring the number of containers, their size and the frequency of their disposal by cleaning companies. A model in this regard is the Village of Banya.

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