Bulgarians to Declare Income from Bank Deposit Interest

The Chair of the Parliamentary Budget Committee, Menda Stoyanova, from the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB. Photo by BGNES

A number of Bulgarians will have to include soon in their tax declaration interest they have earned from their bank deposits, despite assurances of the opposite coming from the Finance Ministry.

The Chair of the Parliamentary Budget Committee, Menda Stoyanova, from the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, is quoted saying by the Bulgarian Sega (Now) daily that all Bulgarians, who have income in addition to their salaries, will have to declare the bank deposist interest.

Stoyanova says the logic behind declaring income derived outside the labor contract is to align it on annual basis thus the income from interest cannot be omitted.

The introduction of the new tax on earnings from bank deposits interest was approved at first reading Thursday by the Parliamentary Budget Committee.

Until now, the Finance Ministry reiterated on a number of occasions that the tax on interest will be deducted by banks monthly or yearly and will be transferred to the National Revenue Agency, NRA, in order to adhere to banking secret legislation on the amounts in bank accounts.

Opponents of including income from bank deposits interest in the tax declaration fear it would allow revenue agents to estimate the amount of the respective deposit.

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