By G. Kouros
Greek taxpayers will face a “tax tsumani” over the coming months totaling a whopping 23.296 billion euros, following a bevy of direct and indirect hikes passed by the leftist government in the spring in order to meet memorandum-mandated fiscal targets through 2018.
The figure is higher by 2.518 billion euros than the corresponding obligations faced by Greek taxpayers and households in 2015, a major challenge for the government to meet amid a still recession-plagued economy and slashed incomes across-the-board.
Failure to meet revenue targets, and by extension fiscal targets in the form of primary budget surpluses as a percentage of GDP, will mean activation of an automatic spending cuts mechanism, a politically damaging prospect for the current government.
The mechanism, dubbed the “cutter” by the opposition and local media, would entail automatic cuts in state spending in case fiscal targets are missed, with state sector wages and pensions viewed as “prime targets” of the “cutter”.
As figures stand today, Greece’s tax bureau will need to collect 4.6 billion euros, on average, every month until the end of 2017 from wage-earners, pensioners, self-employed professionals (everything from craftsmen to physicians) entrepreneurs and business.
Of the nearly 23.3-billion-euro figure, 6.3 billion is budgeted as direct income taxes, with the remainder being money expected to flow into state coffers from the annual property tax (ENFIA), which was retained and even expanded by the leftist government. Another large chuck will come from road fees slapped on the owners of all types of vehicles in the country. Additionally surcharges on fuels will also go into after Oct. 15.
