IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sgh/kaewps/2026118.html

Measuring the sectoral VAT gap in Bulgaria: estimates and its drivers

Author

Listed:
  • Piotr Dybka
  • Stanisław Bartha
  • Anna Komisarska
  • Michał Kowalczuk

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to estimate the level and provide a sectoral decomposition of the VAT gap in Bulgaria based on the unique dataset provided by the National Revenue Agency in Bulgaria (NRA). We focus on the output VAT gap. Our potential VAT estimate takes into account the value of output VAT based on the estimate of sales. Our study also seeks potential macroeconomic factors that affect the VAT gap and obtained results indicate that a higher VAT gap can be associated with a larger share of micro enterprises, changes in the business cycle (i.e. increase in firm death rate and unemployment). Moreover, firms with higher shares of revenues from sales to government observe markedly lower output VAT gap. In Bulgaria, the largest share of the VAT gap in overall value of VAT is observed in the trade sector, followed by the information and communication sector and professional, scientific, and technical activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Piotr Dybka & Stanisław Bartha & Anna Komisarska & Michał Kowalczuk, 2026. "Measuring the sectoral VAT gap in Bulgaria: estimates and its drivers," KAE Working Papers 2026-118, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis.
    • Handle: RePEc:sgh:kaewps:2026118
    DOI: 10.33119/kaewps2026118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12182/1436
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.33119/kaewps2026118?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation
    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sgh:kaewps:2026118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dariusz Nojszewski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/kawawpl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.