Bulgaria"s National Revenue Agency (NRA) will expedite the payment of BGN 400 M in VAT refunds to the business sector by the end of 2011, said NRA Director Krasimir Stefanov on Thursday.

In an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), he said that Finance Minister Simeon Djankov had ordered urgent VAT returns because the companies badly needed fresh money.

According to statistics of the Finance Ministry, the state owes around BGN 600 M to the business sector.

Stefanov specified that only regular payers would be entitled to the fast-tracked VAT refunds.

Bulgarian news portal mediapool.bg, however, reported allegations that tax authorities were conducting deliberate inspections aimed at postponing VAT returns.

Krasimir Stefanov further announced that NRA had collected BGN 11.4 B by end-November 2011, or BGN 715 M more than the same period of 2010.

The NRA head said that the authority would collect BGN 300 M less than the target for 2011 mainly due to the inaccurate forecasts about revenues from social security contributions.