Are the accounts of the Ministry of Finance coming out and what are the risks to the Budget until the end of this year? Journalists Tanya Petrova and Stefan Antonov made an analysis in the show “Before Everyone”.
There will be problems with some revenue items in the Budget. The main concerns at the moment are VAT revenues. It is very likely that the planned revenue will not arrive until the end of the year. There is also a very big risk in terms of the European funds under PVA. If there are gaping holes in the revenue part, we will have many difficulties in implementing the Budget, Tanya Petrova explained.
The bills don’t come out mainly because last year too many expenses were set. Finance Minister Rositsa Velkova’s warning about this last year was ignored, then she was accused of sabotaging the Eurozone. They promised to raise more money. Costs will be saved in the sphere of state investments. We will see him this match and this fall, believes Stefan Antonov.
There is a limit to the revenue that can be collected through this tax system. Every year the Ministry of Finance tries to come up with tricks, we have entered the realm of tax exoticism. With a flat tax, there is no way to conduct a special tax policy. This difficult conversation is ahead, because the state’s expenses cannot fit into this tax framework, Tanya Petrova commented to BNR.
The bills won’t come out like that
When you have a discrepancy between revenues and expenses and you try to reduce it to 5 billion, and you are considering tax changes for 30 million BGN, these are crumbs, said Antonov.
We have too big a problem to be solved with such small revenue measures, Tanya Petrova emphasized. In her words, “whole systems are sitting with huge deficits, and at some point it will become unsustainable as an expense.”
The Ministry of Finance is trying to bring to light covert employment contracts disguised as civil, but this is also a much-criticized proposal, which she believes will not pass. There is a limit to solidarity and one must walk carefully along that edge, Petrova pointed out regarding the insurance thresholds for highly paid professions.
“We have a structural problem laid out last year for the next five years. It cannot be solved by bluffing, shaking some sack, finding some hidden money. It has not been thought out how the expenses will be financed with new revenues,” Stefan Antonov pointed out.
If the money for the PVU does not come in, there will be a cash gap, he is categorical. The second problem, he said, means less money in the fiscal reserve. We are heading for an excessive deficit and according to the methodology before Brussels for the Eurozone, this is happening, Antonov is categorical.
The money under the PVU will cover expenses in the state budget. However, if they do not come, the Ministry of Finance will wonder how to patch up the budget in the last month of the year, and there is no way to do this except with trinkets, said Tanya Petrova.
We are moving very confidently towards the failure of the PVU. The realization horizon is 2026. These are heavy investments. We won’t be able to absorb a very large portion of these grants, she opined.
