VAT issues:Buying property in Bulgaria through registered company is not only on paper

Buying property in Bulgaria through registered company is not only on paper. The Law treats the company as any other legal entity with the relevant rights and obligations. This includes the obligation for VAT registration and charging VAT.

Therefore tax liable person is any person carrying out independent economic activity regardless of the objectives and the results of it. Independent economic activity is the activity of manufacturers, traders and persons, providing services, as well as performing profession as freelance. Independent economic activity shall also be any activity, carried out regularly or by profession, including the exploitation of material or non-material property with the objective to receive regular income from it.

Therefore if you are buying and selling properties in Bulgaria through company as a business or you are letting them out as a business, you should register for VAT. But your company needs to meet the following requirement for compulsory VAT registration – turnover of 50 000 BGN or more, for a period, not exceeding the last 12 consecutive months prior to the current month. The application for registration under law on VAT must be submitted within 14-days term from the expiry of the tax period, during which it has reached this turnover. Therefore it is unlikely to charge VAT on the sale of your first property. For any subsequent sales you must add VAT and charge it to the buyer after your VAT registration.

The taxable turnover is the sum of all tax basis of the taxable deliveries, including those taxed with 0 rate. It excludes the deliveries which are not connected with the main activity of the person, deliveries of long term tangible and intangible assets, used in the business activity (per example office). This exempt is not applicable for properties which the person holds for sale.

Bear in mind the exempt deliveries:

1. The transfer of the ownership right over land, the establishment or the transfer of limited property rights over land, as well as its letting out or granting a lease. The land subject to the transfer of the ownership should not be development land/uregiliran pozemlen imot/, if it is – it is VAT chargeable. The establishment or the transfer of right to build is considered as exempt delivery till the moment of completing the rough construction of the building, for which the right to build is established or transferred. Till this moment chargeable could be only the building works as a service. After completing the building as a rough construction, ascertained with a protocol act 14 of the local municipality VAT should be charged on the value of the new building, because afterwards transferable is the ownership over the new objects from the building/building as a whole.
2. Buildings which are not new
3. Letting out a building or part of it for dwelling to natural person, different from the trader
4. The adjacent terrain to buildings, which are not new

“New buildings” according to Law on VAT are the buildings:

a) which by the date, on which the delivery tax has become due, are at stage of concluding “rough construction”, or

b) for which by the date, on which the delivery tax has become due, 60 months have not expired since the date, on which a certificate of habitation/akt 16/ has been issued by the procedure of the Law on Territory Planning.

“Adjacent terrain” ис the sum of the built area within the meaning of the Law on Territory Planning and the area around the built area, determined on the basis of 3 m. distance from the external outlines of the surrounding walls of the first over-ground floor or of the semi-underground floor of the building in the regulated/development/land.

In any case I highly recommend seeking an advice from a competent accountant.