Bulgaria's Rulers Against Financial Transactions Tax

Bulgaria's Vice-Minister of Finance Vladislav Goranov. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria will not implement a financial transactions tax (FTT), according to Deputy-FinMin Vladislav Goranov and ruling center-right GERB party MP Menda Stoyanova.

Such a tax would raise revenue less than the administrative costs to manage it, according to Goranov and Stoyanova, who spoke at a press conference Tuesday.

"The condition of capital markets in Bulgaria is at present not favorable for taxation," stated Goranov.

The Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Finance further added that it is a policy of the Bulgarian government to stimulate the development of Bulgaria's stock exchange, and that an introduction of the FTT would prove detrimental.

This position was also supported by MP Stoyanova, who chairs the Bulgarian Parliament's Committee on Budgeting and Finance.

"Levels of stock exchange in Bulgaria is quite low, so levying a FTT will neither bring us significant revenue nor stimulate a positive development in financial markets," said she.

The idea of a tax on financial transactions was put forward by a number of European national and EU-level leaders as a means to counteract the financial crisis on the continent and transfer part of the burden from citizens to financial institutions.

In Bulgaria, the idea was recently put forward by representatives of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party as a response to Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov's plans to introduce a tax on all bank interest in the country.

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