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Vasil Bozhkov Staff: Facebook
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Eurofootball owes the state over 300m in fees and interest on them over four years. This is clear from the decision of the administrative court in Sofia in one of the many cases that Vasil Bozhkov’s company is leading against the National Revenue Agency.
The case is about whether the businessman’s company must pay fees in the amount of BGN 261,164.80 and interest in the amount of BGN 67,717,779, or a total of BGN 328,882,670, for the period from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2019.
This is the amount specified in the Act for Establishing a Public State Receivable (AUPDV) of February 14, 2020, issued by the Chairman of the State Gambling Commission.
By the same decision, the court rejected the act on the established public state receivables for the period from February 1, 2014 to November 30, 2014.
The total amount of this amount is not BGN 19,706,089.14.
In the case in which Judge Antoaneta Argirova ruled on March 8, the AUPDV is requested to be declared null and void, revoked, or only for a period in 2014.
“The essence of the legal dispute is related to the application of Article 30, paragraph 3 of the Gambling Act,” Judge Argirova said.
This text, the latest edition of which is from the beginning of 2015, states that: “to maintain a license to organize gambling – traditional lottery, raffle, instant lottery, lotto, lotto, bingo, keno and their varieties of betting on the results of sports competitions and races with horses and dogs, games with bets on random events and with bets related to knowledge of facts, except for online betting, a state fee of 15 percent is collected on the value of the bets made for and for gambling games for which fees and commissions for participation are collected – in the amount of 20 percent on the value of the received fees and commissions. “
Bozhkov claims that he paid 20 percent on the fees and commissions received, that is, he refers to the last sentence of this text. The state believes that it should have paid 15 percent on the bets made.
The Court notes that it is common ground that the norm is not very clear.
He also says that there is no legal definition of “fees and commissions within the meaning” of the Gambling Act as opposed to a “bet”.
The applicant’s statement, ie “Eurofootball”, that nowhere in the law it is explicitly stated which games can be organized with fees and commissions, and for which games there is no such possibility, is also true, Judge Argirova noted.
She adds that the opposite – the law indicates which games can be organized online, and which can not.
The existence of an unclear norm due to “bad editing” (no matter what the reason for this bad editing and its preservation over time),
does not create a ground
nor for non-application of the norm,
nor for its incorrect application,
however, the court points out.
Very thoroughly he analyzes what is a bet and commission.
The court points out that with the disputed AUPDV the due state fee is correctly established under Article 30, paragraph 3, proposition 1 of the Gambling Act, namely 15 percent on the value of the bets made for each game minus the paid state fee up to this moment (20 percent on the difference between the received bets of all participants and the paid winnings of the winning participants), indicated for each separate month for the period in the tables contained in the act.
Therefore, the final conclusion that the amount in the act is due to the state.
The decision is not final. It can be appealed to the SAC.
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