30.03.2015

Minister of Finance Vladislav Goranov sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs Pierre Moscovici. The letter presents the position of the Republic of Bulgaria in regard to the compatibility with the EU law of the provisions of Articles 23, 65 and 66 of the Income Tax Code of the Hellenic Republic No 4172/2013, amended and supplemented by Law No 4321/2015, as well as of the issued on the grounds of Article 65, paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Code Decision of the Greek Minister of Finance which established the list of the countries with preferential tax regime.       

Minister Goranov expresses his strong concern that the tax provisions adopted by Greece are incompatible with the law of the European Union and infringe the fundamental principles laid down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. In the letter he points out that the introduction of a 26% withholding tax on all transactions with a source from Bulgaria, as well as from Ireland and Cyprus, is discriminatory and disproportionate to the pursued goal. Thus it is assumed by presumption that the transactions are performed with the purpose of tax fraud or tax evasion only on the basis of the fact that the corporate taxation regimes in these three countries are more favourable than the taxation regime in Greece. The corporate income taxation cannot be considered as an isolated issue as it is part of the tax system model that each Member State establishes in accordance with national and common European goals and priorities while complying with the EU law. Allowing EU Member State to have such a practice would have an extremely strong negative effect and would undermine the overall functioning of the Community internal market, continues the letter.

HERE you can find the documents sent to the European Commission.