IME and the economic program

Proposal February 2007

Progress

Change in the Law on Normative Acts.

Passed, although with remarks. Came into force in 2008.

Simplification of The Instruction for Financial Justification of the normative acts of the Ministry of Finance.

No

Change in the Law For Restriction Of Administrative Regimes And The Administrative Control Of Economic Activity with the aim to reduce the licenses in accordance with the good practice

No

Restoring inter-ministerial group for improving the business environment.

Organized at the end of 2007. There are no results at the present time.

Creation of a unit for analysis of the effect of policies and legislation within the Council of Ministers. 

There is a concept for the unit to le managed by the Ministry of Economics and Energy. Practically it is not functioning yet.

Change in the register of regulation regimes towards easier orientation and availability of information.

No progress.

Change in the Commercial Law, which is deleting the requirement for minimal capital when registering a company.

There is a proposal by Martin Dimitrov (UDF) during 11/2007 in the Parliament to reduce the size of the required capital ten fold.

Changes in the Trade Register Law, which simplified the required documents for registration and simplifies the use of Internet.

The new system started operation during 2008. We hope that the problems will cause its simplification.  

Changes in the Local Taxes and Fees Law, which defines only the upper limit on the rates of municipal taxes, which the local municipalities collect and the revenues remain in their budget.

Passed, although not in the same format.

Changes in the Personal Income Taxes Law, which reduces the taxation rate to 10% of the income.

Passed.

Changes in the Personal Income Taxes Law, according to which the revenues from personal income tax remain in the municipality's budget. 

No

Change in Social Security Code, which reduces the size of the payments to 10%.

No.

Change in Social Security Code, with which the part of the of social security payment, which goes into private social security funds in increased – at least 6%.   

No.

Introduction of zero rate of tax on reinvested profits.

No.

Change in the Health Insurance Law, with which part of the mandatory health payment of 6% is paid in a chosen by the taxpayer private health fund.

No.

Privatization of the hospitals as soon as possible.

No.

Change in the Law on Privatization and Post Privatization Control, with which are excluded from the list of companies with more than 50% government participation, which are not really of any importance to the national security of Republic of Bulgaria. 

No.

Change in the "State Gazette" Law, with which it becomes accessible free of charge from the Internet, with a legal force in the Internet edition.  

Passed. Comes into force from 06/2008.

Changes in the Public Procurement Law, where procedures which limit transparency are eliminated,

No

Creation of a public register with the number of employee in the State administration – central management of the ministries, and the respective managers of budget funds and all other structures of the State administration.  

No. The Register of administrative structures is being reformed in recent times.

Creation of a public, free of charge and accessible through Internet a register of state properties.

No.

Creation of a public, free of charge and accessible through Internet a register of the building permits issued.

No.

Payment of the State debt with the revenues from privatization and the fiscal reserve,  

To some extend.

Strong limitation and even elimination of active measures on the labor market,

No.

Continuation and thoroughness of the policy of tying the receiving of aid and payments from the budget only against performance of work. 

Significant progress, a maximum term was introduced and it is being applied.

Privatization of the state activities related to mediation on the labor market.

Work is being done.

Parallel introduction of internal/external evaluation in the educational system and voucher system for financing from the budget.

Work is being done.

Introduction of greater autonomy of the schools – they alone could determine the educational content, the text books and how they are going to use their money.  

Work is being done

Differential payment to the employees of the Ministry of the Interior according to the work done and results achieved. Making redundant employees where the same function is performed by more than one unit or the larger number of employees does not lead to better results.

No.

Acceleration of the work of the courts by the use of computer technology and Internet and elimination of the state executors. (see below)

No.

Change in the Law on Notaries and Their Activities, with which they are allowed to advertise their activities; elimination of the requirement for a number of notaries in a city according to the size of the population; elimination of the schedule of the notary taxes.   

No.

Change in the Law on Judiciary and in Private Bailiffs Law, by which the state court executors are eliminated.  

No

Change in the Private Bailiffs Law, by which a national competence is ensured for every private executor.

No.

Change in the Private Bailiffs Law, by which the schedule of taxes related to the execution is eliminated and the tax is due from the creditor.

No.

Faster and wider introduction of financial decentralization.

Work is being done.

Reduction of the number of government employees.

Work is being done. A decision was made for 12% reduction.

Elimination of the minimal salary.

No.

Reform of the system for assistance to the unemployed – if the payments are too high, some of the people are not encouraged to look for jobs and not to relay on the state.

Yes.

Change in the Social Assistance Law, with which a limitation is introduced on the time one could receive social aid, for example 3 or 5 years, after which the person has no more rights to social aid during the rest of his life.  

Almost. A term of receiving aid of 18 months has been introduced.

Introduction and strict adherence to clear criteria such as term of getting the aid and the obligation to perform work against the aid.

Yes. Although it is possible to get around the system.

Increased autonomy of the schools (decentralized decision making).

Partially.

Elimination of the centralized determination of the teacher's salaries.

Partially. The reform started up.