07.08.2009

Vanyo Tanov - a long-year official within the system of the Ministry of Interior, is the new Director of the Customs Agency. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov personally proposed his appointment to Prime Minister Boyko Borisov after familiarizing himself closely with the expertise of Mr. Tanov.

There are many unused possibilities at the Customs Agency and the new head of the revenue administration should target his efforts at finding solutions, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov. The Prime Minister in person has set his tasks. The activity of Vanyo Tanov will focus on stopping smuggling and excise duty abuses, ensuring transparency of the activity, interaction with NGOs and making checks of the alerts in the media on violations at the Agency.

The link for exchange of information between the systems of NRA and the Customs Agency is already working and the officials of the two administrations have access to the databases. This was made possible thanks to the hard work in that direction after the election of the new Bulgarian government and the firm conviction of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov that such link is necessary and benefits the state treasury.

At an official ceremony at the Ministry of Finance the Executive Director of the National Revenue Agency Krasimir Stefanov and the newly appointed Director of the Customs Agency Vanyo Tanov signed an Agreement for cooperation between the two administrations. Thus, the officials of the two revenue administrations can work in closer cooperation and enjoy better coordination while fulfilling their duties.

The creation of the link for exchange of information between the systems of NRA and the Customs Agency is a matter of political will, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov at the press conference. An evidence for this is the fact that we have managed to implement that link only ten days after the assumption of office of the new government. This is a step towards boosting the efficiency of the revenue administrations as well as an expression of the political intention declared before the electorate for a more transparent and responsible state policy. Revenue collection improvement is a major priority of the fiscal policy. This link will help reducing smuggling and will increase the rate of collection of value added tax (VAT). The link will also help businesses by reducing unfair competition, added Minister Djankov. He expressed his confidence that the results from the newly established link would be beneficial for the state treasury this very year.

The technological link between the databases of NRA and the Customs Agency enables certain NRA officials to have access to a specific part of the database of the Customs Agency and vice versa, said the Director of Tax and Social Security Control Directorate of NRA Vassil Panov. This would provide us with an opportunity to exercise more effective control and to prevent VAT frauds. The link will be helpful mainly in two directions: risk analysis and ex-post control as well as in the day-to-day operational work of the Agency's employees, added Panov.

The information now provided to NRA bodies by various state authorities for tax control purposes will be quickly and easily processed for the purposes of the customs control, said during the press conference the Director of the Post Clearance Control Directorate of the Customs Agency Andrey Videnov. He gave as an example the credit dossiers of the banks. Thanks to that link the officials of NRA and the Customs Agency will have access to the data on the "incorrect payers" held by their colleagues and will be able to react in much shorter periods. For businesses it would mean more relieved conditions and fewer checks for correct companies, added Andrey Videnov.

During a demonstration after the signing ceremony, which took place at the building of the NRA headquarters, the media representatives were able to personally see how the new link for exchange of information between the systems worked.