Consecutive finance ministry leaderships have reportedly allowed at least three types of manipulations of the method in which a unified property tax rate is calculated, in order to increase the overall take from property taxes year after year.
According to reports, over the 2014-15 period nearly all owners of building space – apartments, standalone residences, offices, commercial real estate etc. – paid the unpopular property tax, known as ENFIA in its Greek-language acronym, at higher rates due to ministry “fidgeting” with the objective value criteria used to assess real estate and the coefficients applied vis-à-vis the year of completion.
The same “techniques” are being employed this year by the leftist Greek government, despite the fact that in many parts of the country objective value criteria – used by the tax bureau to determine the rates for property fees – will decrease by 4 to 38 percent.
The “supplementary” ENFIA tax and the irregular manner it has been applied covered building space and tracts of land in town planning zones with a value of above 300,000 euros. This year the tax-free ceiling was lowered to 200,000 euros.
Other changes in effect for this year’s property tax include an abolition of a 20-percent discount from the primary rate for completed building space that is not connected to the power grid; a reduction in the tax-free ceiling of the supplementary rate, from 300,000 to 200,000 euros; an increase in coefficients used to calculate the supplementary tax, a development that evaporates whatever gains from lower objective value criteria; an increase in coefficients for calculating the primary tax on tracts of land and building lots, as well as an increase in coefficients used to determine the supplementary tax on real estate owned by legal entities, up from 0.5 to 0.55 percent.
Additionally, the supplementary tax is imposed for the first time on real estate owned and used by legal entities, with the tax rate set at 0.1 percent.
