By Giorgos Palaitsakis
[email protected]
Arrears towards the Greek state inched closer to the “landmark” 100 billion-euro mark in October 2016, with official figures putting it at 94 billion euros, of which 82.1 billion euros is arrears accumulated until the end of 2015.
As such, 11.8 billion euros in “new debts” were added to the debt load in 2016 so far, with another 1.4 billion euros piled on as arrears in October 2016.
According to finance ministry data, individual taxpayers and legal entities owing money to the state reached just over 4.3 million in October 2016, down by around 70,000 from the previous month. While the number of tax codes showing arrears went down, the total sum went up.
Moreover, state-sanctioned seizures and confiscations of assets, deposits and withholding of salaries for arrears to the state reached just over 803,000 instances in the first 10 months of 2016, up from 695,000 during the same period in 2015.
