Bulgaria Pop Diva Still Facing the Music over Tax Fraud

Society | September 6, 2010, Monday // 14:13|  views

"This is just the next batch of insinuation," Lili Ivanova said, declining comment. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

Bulgaria's national revenue agency is still investigating the queen of pop Lili Ivanova for possible tax evasion as part of measures to curb rampant fraud and boost budget revenues, according to reports.

Bulgarian music stars Lili Ivanova and Vasil Naydenov were among the first 16 singers against whom the National Revenue Agency (NRA) launched checks for tax evasion about a year ago as many of them are believed to declare only a fraction of their true earnings.

Last week the revenue agency said two of the biggest pop and popfolk stars owed between BGN 700,000 and BGN 1 M in unpaid taxes and interest payments.

"We can not comment information about taxes and social securities as it is confidential," said agency spokesman Rossen Bachvarov.

According to a report of local 24 Hours daily the singers with the biggest discrepancies between declared incomes and actual assets held are Vasil Naydenov, Lili Ivanova and Preslava.

"This is just the next batch of insinuation," Lili Ivanova said when approached by the daily and declined to comment.

Musicians would have to pay back the taxes they owed if audits proved their real and declared incomes did not match.

Bulgaria's center-right government, which swept the elections last summer, has launched a number of tax evasion checks as it fears that a failure to meet its promise to fight against graft and powerful organized crime could lead to more sanctions by the European Union.

Earlier in the summer the revenue agency checked the property and bank deposits of more than 70 top flight football players for suspected tax evasion and now it claims the probe is yielding results – some of the players are already reporting incomes as high as BGN 50,000 per month.

The action was a follow-up to previous checks of players and top flight clubs that revealed millions of levs of unpaid taxes and social securities.

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Tags: Lili Ivanova, Vasil Naydenov, NRA, National Revenue Agency, tax evasion, chalga, pop, popfolk

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