AMENDMENTS ON LOCAL TAXES AND FEES ACT FOR THE DETERMINATION OF “DOMESTIC WASTE” FEE

BIA has addressed its views on the new project for amendments in the Local Taxes and Fees Act on the matter of determination of “domestic waste” fee to the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister of Bulgaria. Some of the main points are the following:

1. No fee shall be charged for companies which have signed a contract with a licensed operator with a valid license for waste collection, transportation and treatment of domestic waste (Art. 71, item 3) for the services of waste collection, transportation and (transmission for) treatment.

2. Para 5 (Art. 71, item 3) regulates the right of municipal councils to adopt a base or bases of domestic waste fees, different than the ones constituted in para 4 (the amount of generated and treated domestic waste) provided there are objective circumstances impeding their application. This text focuses on the efforts of municipal councils to "justify" the "objective circumstances" preventing the use of quantity as a general basis for determination of “domestic waste” fee. The updated bill should strictly frame the imperative application of para 8, which exhaustively regulates the bases connected to the amount of generated, collected, transported and treated domestic waste. In this regard the text of para 5 shall be dropped.

3. In para 6 a new para (3) of Art. 68 should be added in order to prevent potential attempts of municipal councils turn back to the tax assessment practice based on tax assessment (asset value) if a plan account has not been adopted by January 20, with the following text:

“(3) In cases where by January 20 the municipal council does not approve the plan-account with the costs for the following year and/or the types of basis for determining the amount of the municipal waste tax under this Act, the respective costs for the services under Art. 62 shall be financed at the expense of the municipality's own revenues for the following calendar year.”

4. In para 10 of the Transitional and Final Provisions the deadline for the adoption of the ordinance under Art. 66, para. 3, item 1 of the Council of Ministers should be reduced from six to three months.