An alarmingly large part of Bulgarian city and town dwellers show poor awareness of the tax laws and half of them are unable to comment how their incomes would be taxed next year, according to a survey by the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CED). The survey was commissioned by theFinance Ministry and made public by CED's Alexander Bozhkov on Saturday, BTA reported.

About half of the respondents are not sure what value added tax is. Two-thirds are not aware of the changes in the corporate taxation effected early this year.

One in two respondents say that the individual income taxes do not concern them. This either means that they are totally tax-ignorant or than they are employed in the shadow economy, the e-zine mediapool.bg says in its report on the survey.

One in two are also unaware of the contemplated introduction of a 10 per cent flat tax on personal incomes from next year.

According to Alexander Bozhkov, the survey results are the consequence of the Finance Ministry's failure to organize a meaningful awareness campaign instead of just break the news of the impending flat tax, media pool says.