After three years of delay, the Customs and the Revenue Agency finally demonstrated serious intentions to join efforts in the energy sector and within a month – a common information system for monitoring fuels is to be introduced. It will be part of the Bulgarian Centralized Excise Information System through which both institutions will detect the movement of all excisable goods.
This is provided in the draft amendments to the Excise Duties Act, introduced by the government in the Parliament’s budget committee, already passed at first reading.
There is full control and transparency at the Customs Agency as regards the movement of fuel, that is the amount and type of fuel imported or transported from the refinery to the gas stations, reported the head of the Customs Agency Vanyo Tanov before the Budget Committee. Stations, after being equipped with meters and tied to online cash registers, also became transparent. Which means that tax authorities should know what and how much each station sells.
However there are some questions that still remain without answers: for example how come Octane station purchased 100 tonnes of fuel in April, duly entered into books and stocks and in early May it appears that it sold 120 tonnes, again in April?
So, where do these 20 tonnes come from? The possible answer is they add water, paraffin oil or even alcohol. Sometimes, condensation in this humid weather helps, too.
But these outdated methods are difficult to avoid the rigid control on quality. And there is no way a station can add a liquid equal to a fifth of the amount of petrol it sols and still not been detected.
Therefore the more accurate explanation here is probably illegal importing. These are probably imported quantities that the Customs Offices just failed to notice. In this case Customs reported 100 tonnes of imports, while the NRA reported sales of 120 tonnes – through the cash registers of Octane tied to the tax administration system. But because there is no direct link between the systems of the Customs and the Revenue Agency the smuggling has remained hidden.
The Bulgarian Centralized Excise Information System is expected to become operational by mid next year. It will allow the monitoring of every litre of fuel from the excise warehouse of the manufacturer or from the border (in case of importers) to its turning it into exhaust gasses or heating power by a boiler in a kindergarten.
The system will make it possible that each litre of fuel traded on the Bulgarian market will change hands though an electronic document and thus all quantities of fuel sold by wholesalers to retailers will be precisely known so there will be no loopholes for fraud chains and VAT siphoning from fictitious companies.
Overall information system will allow both institutions to better control the quantities and to counteract any tax revenue and non-payment of outstanding public debts, says the Government Information Office
