By G. Kouros
[email protected]
A tax revenue “marathon” commenced this month in Greece to collect 11 billion euros of the budgeted annual goal of 27.3 billion euros by the end of the year, a prerequisite for meeting memorandum-mandated fiscal targets and avoiding any “mishaps” in last stretch of the current bailout program.
On average, 4.5 billion euros must flow into the state’s coffers until the end of 2017, beginning in July.
One standing anxiety from the continuing insistence of the current leftist-rightist coalition government to rely on high tax rates and commensurate collection, in order to fulfill ambitious fiscal targets, is so-called “tax fatigue” on the part of taxpayers and consumers. The worry is that less disposal income due to high personal income and corporate taxes will continue to pressure consumption downwards, and by extension, threaten indirect tax (VAT, “sin taxes”) targets.
The first installment of income taxes comes at the end of July for taxpayers whose return shows money owed to the state, with up to six million taxpayers obliged to meet a deadline of July 17 for filing returns – a date that was pushed back from June 30. Some 1.2 billion euros are budgeted to be collected from this first installment. Others follow in late September and November 2017, respectively.
The finance ministry in the still bailout-dependent country estimates that 2.5 million tax returns will show a balance in favor of the state’s treasury, while the tax total from businesses and companies is forecast at three billion euros, in absolute terms.
Six installments, as opposed to eight last year, are provided for payment of corporate taxes.
Additionally, the first property tax notices will be generated in August, with five installments envisioned. The first installment of the unpopular property tax, called ENFIA in its Greek-language acronym, is due in September 2017 and the last, for this year, in January 2018. The revenue target for the property tax in 2017 remains the same as last year, 2.65 billion euros.
According to figures supplied by the newly created independent authority for public revenues, 4.7 million tax returns have been filed so far.
