The projected revenue goal for this year’s property tax is 180 million euros more than the figure in 2015, primarily due to certain categories of rural land now taxed, and despite whatever reductions in rates for lower-income taxpayers.
Based on statements by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras over the weekend, some seven million property holders, individuals and all types of legal entities, will be liable for property taxes this year.
During his appearance at the opening of a northern Greece trade exhibition, Tsipras also essentially revealed that the property tax, known as ENFIA in its Greek-language acronym, will not be abolished in 2017.
Tsipras and his then radical leftist SYRIZA party used the ENFIA tax as a “battering ram” against the previous center-right, center-left coalition government, when the former were in the opposition. In fact, Tsipras had pledged to fully abolish the property tax when in office.
His only concession, as expressed in a speech in Thessaloniki, was increasing a discount, up to 100 percent, for very low-income taxpayers, and with a ceiling on the size and value of their real estate.
What remains a “question mark” for the coming years is if the government, or subsequent governments, will expand the property tax to include farm tracts and property outside of town planning zones – which comprises the vast majority of land in the country. Additionally, another serious issue is the fact that objective tax criteria employed by the tax bureau to set values for real estate, particularly residential apartments and commercial property, is in most cases higher than market values in crisis-swamped Greece.
