The revealed car tax fraud scheme: BGN 6 million damage to the budget in just one year

BGN 6 million is the damage to the budget in just one year from the revealed large-scale tax fraud scheme with luxury carsinvestigators say.

A number of companies participated in the criminal business – some of them with fictitious owners and impersonators.

The specialist operation was carried out last Thursday. It is about a network of companies that deal with importing luxury cars and then selling them on the Bulgarian market. The turnover for the last year is about BGN 30 million, and they did not pay the VAT on this amount and thus damaged the state by about BGN 6 million.

The cars and trucks are high class and imported from European Union countries. They declare them as the property of commercial companies carrying out sham activities.

The path to the final buyer passes through several companies. Thus, anyone who buys a car, whether as an individual or on lease, must pay 20% VAT.

“This tax is charged by the supplier, who must contribute it to the budget. But he does not import it when he himself has paid it to his supplier and thus creates a chain of companies,” explains Chavdar Pastovanov.

And so we get to the last company in the chain. But this company has no employees and no income, and accordingly the NRA cannot collect anything from this transaction.
A significant part of the companies in the chain are hollow with fictitious, socially weak owners and managers.

Searches were carried out at 23 addresses in 6 cities. The investigators have also requested information from the leasing company through which the sale of some of the cars went.

Detained and there are no accused so far.