A controversial tax on “surplus profit” from real estate transactions will again, in all probability, be suspended for coming year. The Tsipras government had previously announced that it would again take effect in 2018.
Nevertheless, the government on Wednesday announced that it was adding an amendment to a tabled draft justice ministry bill to extend the suspension of the tax measure.
The General Accounting Office had estimated that a restoration of the tax – on the amount of money arising between the purchase and sale price of a property – would bring in 24 million euros in 2018 to state coffers.
The measure was first passed in 2014, but later suspended due to a bevy of administrative problems in trying to implement it.
Property owners associations and realtors have also decried the fact that it would add yet another surcharge on real estate transactions in a market that has imploded since the advent of the economic crisis in late 2009.
