On 28 December 2018, new requirements for persons selling online were introduced in Bulgarian tax legislation for the first time. The purpose of these changes was to enable the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency (NRA) to access information about persons selling via online stores, as well as to maintain a public list where anyone is able to verify the owner of a specific online store.
Who do the new requirements apply to?
The new requirements apply to traders resident in Bulgaria as well as to foreign taxable persons registered for VAT purposes in Bulgaria who sell goods or services through an online store, irrespective of whether they use their own domain, a leased domain or another party’s domain which provides a platform for selling online.
Under the legal definition, an online store is an Internet website through which sale of goods/services is conducted by concluding a distance contract under Article 45 of the Consumer Protection Act, and which has built-in functionality for selecting, adding and removing goods/services to/from a shopping basket; submitting information about the buyer and the delivery address; and choosing a payment method.
What obligations do persons selling via an online store have?
Persons who sell goods or services via an online store are obliged to submit certain information to the NRA prior to trading through their online store. The information must be submitted electronically with a verified electronic signature using an electronic service in the NRA e-service portal. If a trader offers goods or services through several online stores, information must be submitted separately for each store.
In the event of changes to the declared data or the online store ceasing trading, up-to-date information must be submitted to the NRA within seven days of the change being made or trading via the online store ceasing.
In addition, these persons are obliged to store the information generated by the online store software (the current database and archived copies of the database) until expiry of the ten-year statute of limitations for payment of the respective tax liabilities under the Bulgarian Tax and Social Security Procedure Code.
What information needs to be submitted to the NRA?
The information that must be submitted to the NRA before the online store starts trading includes:
- Information on the online store – Name, domain, information about the store’s domain owner, where the store’s website is hosted, who maintains the store’s website, what software is used and where the software database is stored, start and end date of the store’s operations;
- Information on the person selling via the online store – Name, title, registered address, address where business is conducted, email address and phone number, VAT registration status;
- Information on online sales – Whether sales are made via an online platform or proprietary store, what goods and services are sold.
All required information must be provided in accordance with a template declaration.
What is the deadline for persons already selling online to submit information?
If, as of the date the new requirements for online stores enter into force (28 December 2018), the persons in question are already operating commercially via an online store, they must submit the required information to the NRA no later than 28 March 2019.
