The shortcoming will slow the real estate market in the whole country until the end of January because regional tax administrations are not ready to issue new property tax evaluations, Bulgarian-language daily Sega reported January 8.

This year the base for taxation increased by 20 per cent compared with 2006. Computer programmes have to be brought up to date to do this. But the National Revenue Agency (NRA) is not yet ready with the software that should be installed in regional tax administrations.

The software problem does not affect individuals’ tax evaluations, which are already being done, taking into account the 20 per cent increase, and are being issued without problems.

“We do not issue certificates for tax evaluations of companies in Sofia, we only attend to individuals,” said Daniel Delev, chairman of Revenues and Local Tax Administration’s regional department.

The NRA press centre announced that from January 3 the new information system was “ready and working properly”. Four hours after the launch of the system, 2248 labour notifications and 614 social insurance declarations were collected and processed. About 520 notifications and 94 declarations were signed with e-certificates and sent to customers via the internet.

The software provides services to more than 2000 active users and deals with about 30 requests every second, the NRA said. The project, developed by the French company Bull, automates most of the NRA’s processes, including tax and social insurance documents.

At the end of the tax year, NRA employees should install the necessary software for company tax evaluations, too.

“I don’t know when and how this could happen,” Delev said.

Because of similar software problems, in 2006 Sofia firms were issued tax evaluations as late as February 15. This year NRA director Maria Murgina has promised to introduce the software before January 15.

Tax evaluations for property were also delayed in the Black Sea city of Varna. The director of the local tax administration, Ventsislava Koeva, announced that the service would start as of January 10.  The delay also stems from internal re-organisation. The municipality is not ready with new receipts issued for collected taxes.

The situation in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city, is similar. An NRA spokesperson in Plovdiv said the municipal council has to vote on the new refuse taxation rate by January 31, as the law states. Afterwards, based on this year’s 20 per cent building tax increase, new calculations of the tax evaluation formula should be made. The council’s debate on the refuse tax in Plovdiv is scheduled for January 18.