Bulgarian Socialist Party listed as major tax debtor

The National Revenue Agency has listed Kornelia Ninova’s Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) as a major tax debtor, owing the state 62 546 leva as of May 7.

The agency publishes a list of entities owing more than 5000 leva, with private individuals not publicly listed.

The BSP stopped broadcasting its mouthpiece television channel Bulgarska Svobodna Televizia (“Bulgarian Free Television”) at the end of April 2023, with the party saying at the time that the suspension was because of the relocation of studios and equipment and dismissing as “fake news” reports that the channel – launched in October 2018 – was off the air because of a lack of funding and mounting debts.

In Bulgaria’s April 2 2023 early parliamentary elections, Ninova led the BSP to its worst-ever election result, getting 8.93 per cent of the vote. The party was allocated 23 seats in Bulgaria’s 240-seat National Assembly, making it the second-smallest parliamentary group.

The BSP is one of eight political parties listed as a major debtor by the National Revenue Agency, but it is the only one with seats in the National Assembly.

The biggest debtor among political parties is Volen Siderov’s far-right Ataka, which owes 316 114 leva.

It is followed by the Party of Bulgarian Women – founded in 1997 and which 10 years later went into coalition with Simeon Saxe-Coburg’s National Movement for Stability and Progress – which owes the National Revenue Agency 96 917.

The Bulgarian Social Democracy party owes 78 449 leva and Yane Yanev’s Order Law and Justice party owes 42 000 leva. Novoto Vreme, a breakaway from Saxe-Coburg’s party, owes about 26 000 leva.

Anti-EU and anti-Nato party From the People For the People, founded in 2011 by former Ataka MP Pavel Chernev, is in debt to the National Revenue Agency to a sum of close to 30 000 leva, while the BZNS (the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union) owes just more than 10 000 leva.

(Photo: BSP)

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