By T. Tsiros
[email protected]
Greece’s independent public revenues authority has already reached an annual target set by creditors for the imposition of obligatory collection measures for arrears (above 500 euros) owed by taxpayers to the state in the first quarter of 2018.
Nearly 60,000 taxpayers were added to a list for obligatory collection of arrears via bank account seizures, up to the amount owed, between January and March 2018.
With the latest development, obligatory collection measures – bank account seizures, withholding of rebates, court-ordered auctions etc – have been imposed on nearly 1.11 million taxpayers in a population of roughly 11 million people.
Creditors had demanded - for the first quarter of 2018 - that the percentage of taxpayers with verified arrears to the state, and for which obligatory collection measures were ordered, to exceed 53 percent of the total, rising to 59 percent by the end of the year. The 65-percent figure achieved in Q1 2018, therefore, exceeded the annual target in the first three months.
The performance is even more noteworthy given that a large chunk of arrears owed to the Greek state and social security funds, a figure that hovers at between 98 to 100 billion euros, has been accummulated over several decades by businesses no long in operation or taxpayers no longer alive or economically active.
