Bulgaria’s PM: VAT for restaurants and entertainment sector to be cut to 9% next year

Value-added tax for restaurants, catering and places of entertainment categorised under the Tourism Act will be reduced to nine per cent as of January 1 2021, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said after meeting representatives of restaurants and hotel associations on May 12.

Borissov said that the proposed amendments would be tabled in the National Assembly by the parliamentary group of his GERB political party on Tuesday.

He said that the decision bears a political risk, but is in support of the restaurant industry because of their losses resulting from the coronavirus crisis.

“This may be a measure that will produce good results and be long-lasting,” Borissov said in a Facebook post after meeting representatives of the Association of Restaurants in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association.

He said that at the meeting, it also had been agreed to postpone the entry into force of the amendments to Regulation H-18 for a period of one year, as a result of which it will come into force on March 1 2021. The regulation governs fiscal reporting via cash registers.

The VAT reduction and postponement of H-18 had been among demands declared on May 11 by hotel, restaurant and tourism associations, which said that they were planning a national protest outside Parliament on May 18.

On May 12, on the eve of the end of the State of Emergency, the National Assembly was sitting to debate and vote on the second reading of amendments to the Health Act, making provision for measures against the spread of Covid-19 after May 13.

(Photo: Lance Nelson of appfactory.bg)

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