Petkova wants banks to pay advance tax for another year

Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova cited the law to explain why the ministry has not yet published preliminary information on budget implementation for May. This is a long-standing practice, which the Ministry of Finance (MF) has violated for the second time this year without providing an explanation.

The Public Finance Act does not require the publication of preliminary data. When it is available, we will present it to you," the minister said in response to a journalist's question.

As Economic.bg reported earlier this week, the Ministry of Finance (MF) published on Tuesday data on the state of the state treasury at the end of April, but failed to announce the preliminary data for May.

A similar situation occurred at the beginning of the year, when a deficit of BGN 400 million was expected, but a surplus of BGN 100 million was recorded.

The current delay in the data has sparked speculation that the ministry is struggling to show sufficient revenue in the state coffers and is hiding the size of the budget deficit. According to information provided by journalists during the briefing, the deficit as of June may have reached BGN 4.8 billion, or almost 2.5% of GDP (with a limit of 3%).

Petkova's response, however, was laconic, refusing to give even the size of the deficit.

Wait for the final data for May, that's all I can tell you,” she said.

Banks help out in advance

During the conference, it was announced that negotiations are underway with banks to pay advance income tax not only for this year but also for next year. This means about BGN 1.1 billion in revenue for the treasury, which fuels suspicions that there are problems with budget implementation.

When asked about this, Petkova again responded laconically to journalists' questions, pointing out that negotiations with the industry have been ongoing since the time of the caretaker government and are continuing now.

This is an advance tax. Each bank will decide based on its accounting policy and payment options,” she said.

“Nothing to worry about”

I don't see anything worrying about increasing the capital of the Bulgarian Energy Holding, for example,” Petkova said.

Her comment was in connection with the possibility provided for in the 2025 Budget for the capitalization of state-owned companies in specific sectors, such as energy, education, defense, etc.

According to the text of the law, only the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) should receive BGN 4 billion.

This is only a possibility,“ the minister added.

Corporate donations

One of the exotic revenue measures in the 2025 Budget provided for companies to make ”donations" to the treasury, which would be considered for tax purposes.

When asked whether such donations had already been made, Petkova avoided answering the question.

It is too early to say, let's wait (for the data),” she summarized.

Translated with DeepL.