If during the past year Bulgarians joked that the number of millionaires in the country doubled due to inflation, this year their number seems to decrease due to deflation. Statistics show that the number of wealthy Bulgarians with incomes above 500 000 euro in 2013 was 147 while in 2012 these people were 258. While in the cities of Sofia, Varna, Dobrich their number has decreased by half, there are 11 new millionaires in Burgas. The top 10 chart of the richest Bulgarians seems to be getting younger; millionaires earn twice as much money in comparison to the past and there is only one lady among them.

A man aged 49 from Sofia has declared a 3-million-euro income for 2013. This is the Bulgarian who declared the biggest incomes. The richest lady is 48, also from the capital city of Sofia and she declared an income of 2 million euro for the past year. What is interesting is that both earned their millions from the sale of real estates. The youngest manager millionaire is 25 years old and she made 1.5 million euro in 2013, which means an average monthly salary of 120,000 euro. The youngest wealthy manager among the men is 26 years old and had an income of 138,000 euro a month.

The official Bulgarian millionaires, who declared their incomes to the tax authorities, won a total of over 305 million BGN or 152 million euro.

The origin of the money is usually labor agreements, trading and property sales. The lowest declared income above the salary is 1 euro, data by the National Revenue Agency show. The difference between this tax payer and the top one in the list is 3 million euro.

But why does the number of rich Bulgarians decline? Some say that the crisis and the bankruptcies of a number of companies are the reasons. Optimists pay attention to the fact one third of the millionaires earned their money as high-level managers. Pessimists, however, focus on the fact that most of the money came from sales of property, not from production. The declining number of rich Bulgarians is also a signal that there is something wrong with the economy. In addition, the real number of millionaires is much higher than the official figures.

Many work in the gray sector and do not declare their true incomes. Expensive cars on the streets of Sofia multiply, as well as the huge mansions and luxury hotels. It seems official statistics distort the real picture of the number of rich Bulgarians and their wealth. Officially they are just too few.

And no one bothered to ask what happened to the millionaires from previous years – did they go bankrupt or just stopped declaring their incomes?

“There is only one fair way to become a millionaire,” a rich man once told another one.

“What is it?”

“I was sure you did not know it either.”

English version: Alexander Markov