With arrears to the Greek state nearing the milestone 100-billion-euro mark the finance ministry’s general secretariat for public revenues is rapidly promoting the implementation of a comprehensive and fully automated electronic system to monitor, manage and breakdown the debts.
Current arrears to the state – by taxpayers, store owners, businesses and even other state-affiliated entities – total 92.5 billion euros, although a good portion of this figure dates back decades, with arrears owed by corporate entities that no longer exist and by taxpayers that are deceased.
Nevertheless, the 2016 “tax tsunami” unleashed by the leftist Greek government in order to meet commitments arising from the memorandum it signed in August 2015 mean that taxes obligations have skyrocketed in the second half of the year, with a corresponding spike in arrears expected. 2015-related obligations to the tax bureau for the remainder of 2016 total 12.17 billion euros, with more tax hikes coming scheduled as of Jan. 1, 2017.
Beyond the attempt at better “housekeeping” of tax arrears, the finance ministry must implement at least 10 milestones in order to fulfill its portion of demands by creditors in order to complete a second review of the Greek program (third bailout) over the next 15 days.
Milestones, or “prior actions”, include:
- Changes in the law on collecting public revenues to make auctions of confiscated property easier
- A new system to speed up asset seizure for outstanding debt obligations to the state
- A review of all corporate and business tax breaks
- Possible changes in corporate and business tax rates
- Changing the way objective property tax criteria is calculated, so that the figure more closely approximates commercial values
- A new tax system for the shipping sector, based on EU recommendations
- A new tax system for collective investment vehicles
- New measures to track down income generated from off-shore investment portfolios held by private taxpayers
- An electronic assets register
- Expanding the electronic seizure measure to bank safety deposit boxes for arrears to the state
