The rulers are on their way to consistently and methodically send small traders of fuel in the history, giving their market share to the big industry players. The next step in this direction was made during the week after the Treasury and the National Revenue Agency (NRA) ignored the demands of small and medium owners of filling stations to change the terms of the assembly of the so-called level gauges.
With changes in the tax law from the beginning of 2011 such stations were required to report electronically their turnover to the NRA. In June last year they introduced an additional requirement for them to add to the existing financial information also the exact quantities of petrol and diesel sold and available in the dispenser tanks.
Obviously, this seemed insufficient to the Treasury, which through further adjustments in the VAT Act, introduced the condition for all sellers to place to the electronic systems the level measuring devices, allowing thus tax authorities to monitor in real time the exact amounts of fuel passing through the petrol pumps and the tanks at service stations. The deadline for this expires at the end of March 2012, and instances of incompliance shall be fined by up to BGN10,000 plus closure.
If the condition remains to have to install the level gauges by 31 March, out of 3,000 small and medium stations around 1,000 will have to close, small and medium-sized owners said at a news conference on Tuesday (January 3).
They explained that they cannot afford to bear the cost of level gauges. Initially it was promised that the devices will cost about 3 thousand, but it has been subsequently proved that the installation software and the reporting system of the fuel level gauges in tanks will come to about BGN20,000, not including costs of their annual maintenance.
According to the chairman of the Union of Small and Medium-sized Stations Owners, Ivaylo Nikolov, the only solution is the deadline for installation of level gauges to be extend at least by a year and a half. The aim is to attract competing suppliers of gauges, which will lead to two- to three-fold decrease in prices.
In such a demand there is reason, as the market situation of this type of systems is rather specific. According to the Financial Ministry, the most popular if the American brand Veeder Root, whose price is in fact about EUR10,000. The Banker has found out the U.S. company has a single distributor for Bulgaria – Petrol Technika, managed by Ivaylo Drenkarov. The sole owner of Petrol Technika is one of the largest distributors of fuels in the country – Petrol AD.
According to the owners of small stations, however, they have the option to buy level gauges produced by Bulgarian companies at lower prices. These are the companies Tanteks-90 Ltd. and Datex but they can not manage to produce this quantity of devises in the period by 31 March.
