Bulgaria's government has rejected a proposal for awarding music star Lili Ivanova with an additional pension for her extraordinary achievements, citing tax evasion.

Earlier this month Culture Minister Vezhdi Rashidov proposed that the government grants a personal pension to the popular singer on the grounds that she currently receives only BGN 105, just a notch above the social pension for old age, which is BGN 100.89.

Finance Minister Simeon Djankov opposed vehemently the proposal, saying that Lili Ivanova owes huge sums to the budget in unpaid taxes.

Bulgarian biggest music stars Lili Ivanova, Vasil Naydenov and Aziz have to pay a whopping BGN 1 M in taxes following a probe for possible tax evasion as part of measures to curb rampant fraud and boost budget revenues, according to reports.

The music icons were among the first 16 singers against whom the National Revenue Agency (NRA) launched checks for tax evasion about a year and a half ago as many of them are believed to declare only a fraction of their true earnings.

According to a report of local 24 Hours daily the singers with the biggest discrepancies between declared incomes and actual assets held are Vasil Naydenov, Lili Ivanova and pop folk diva Preslava.

"This is just the next batch of insinuation," Lili Ivanova said when approached by the daily and declined to comment.

Musicians have to pay back the taxes they owe if audits prove their real and declared incomes did not match.

Bulgaria's center-right government, which swept the elections last summer, has launched a number of tax evasion checks as it fears that a failure to meet its promise to fight against graft and powerful organized crime could lead to more sanctions by the European Union.

In the summer last year the revenue agency checked the property and bank deposits of more than 70 top flight football players for suspected tax evasion and now it claims the probe is yielding results – some of the players are already reporting incomes as high as BGN 50,000 per month.

The action was a follow-up to previous checks of players and top flight clubs that revealed millions of levs of unpaid taxes and social securities.

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