Lying About Incomes In Bulgaria

Lying about incomes for lower or no tax is not restricted to footballers in Bulgaria. Perhaps they were picked because they are high profile. It is common practice to announce on accounts of the minimum wage but actually get a much higher cash in hand payment. It will take a decade or two to get this accounted for with computerised payment made directly into Bulgarian workers’ banks (many don’t have bank accounts yet here). Even with this in place there will always be cash in the hand on top of the pay on the database. If they can get away with it they will do it, after all backhanders is how the world goes around isn’t it? Just ask any politician worldwide, but of course they’ll lie and say no. I do think though that taking expensive cars away from footballers is a bit of a feeble antidote and just an idea to provoke public awareness and media interest – Here is the evidence, as I’m writing about it.

Many of Bulgarian football stars may have to part with their expensive vehicles as the government discovered that the vast majority of them declare impossibly low incomes. An audit at football clubs and the Bulgarian Football Union disclosed a shocking practice of players being paid 200-300 levs (1 euro = 1.95 levs) on paper and 10-20,000 levs under the counter. The information came from National Revenue Agency Director Krassimir Stefanov, who yesterday approached the Prosecutor's Office with findings that Bulgaria's major football clubs missed to pay 8 million levs of taxes. PFC CSKA Sofia is the black list leader with 2 million levs in liabilities to NRA.

"We have agreed to pay our taxes in installments," CSKA Supervisory Board Chair Dimitar Borissov explained.

It is customary among football clubs not to disclose annexes to player contracts containing information about the actual payment the players get. On the other hand there seems to be a general "forgetfulness" among footballers when it comes to declaring their actual income. The bad news is that now all of them will have to explain to the tax authorities where the money for the posh cars they drive come from?

Source: standartnews.com
Image by Purrrpl_Haze via Flickr