Bulgaria's Cabinet was considering plans to reform revenue collection by merging all government agencies handling such activities, former finance minister Milen Velchev told Bulgarian National Radio on May 8 2008.

"We are not talking about dismantling the customs agency or the national revenue service, which is the main pillar of the tax administration," he said.

Velchev, who is deputy leader of National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP), one of the three parties in the ruling coalition, said that in most other countries that has improved revenue collection.

Velchev has a track record for pushing forward with measures aimed to boost government revenue since returning to Bulgaria from his investment banking job at Merrill Lynch to become finance minister in the NMSP cabinet in 2001, but he was more cautious this time around.

"The topic is worth talking about, but I am not certain at this time whether we should completely re-hash the existing revenue-collection institutions," he said.

The issue could be on the agenda of the Bansko meeting of the leaders of the three parties in the ruling coalition, but Velchev said he did not expect a decision right away. Even if the process was put in motion now, reform would be finished by the next cabinet, which will take office after next year's parliamentary polls, Velchev said.

"I am not even certain that a decision in that sense would be made this week. It is so serious in its scope that it deserves more thinking time and it could be pushed back on the agenda," he told BNR in an interview.