An extraordinary “social benefit” will again be doled out by the leftist-rightist government come Christmas time this year – similar to a 617-million-euro “holiday bonus” allocated last year – from the surplus money collected from exceeding a fiscal goal mandated by creditors.
Nevertheless, while last year’s benefit was abruptly announced without prior consultation with creditors, this year’s outlay has reportedly been approved by Greece’s Eurozone partners and the single currency area’s institutional bodies following negotiations. Additionally, in a bid to prevent last year’s universal allocation to roughly 1.2 million pensioners – in a country of 11 million residents – with the sole criterion being total monthly social security benefits not exceeding 800 months, this year’s “yuletide bonus” will be accompanied by income, household and asset criteria.
For instance, citizens that report very low incomes, but which possess other assets (such as real estate holdings), will not be beneficiaries of the measure.
The figure set to be divvied up by the government is 1.1 billion euros, which the opposition vociferously charges is the product of over-taxation, especially from a “tax tsunami” imposed in 2016. Conversely, the government, as expressed by Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos in Parliament on Thursday, claimed that the excess from surpassing the primary budget surplus target (as a percentage of GDP) comes from more people finding work, and therefore paying taxes, as well as more high-end taxpayers revealing undeclared incomes. Even Tsakalotos, however, admitted that the middle classes are being over-taxed in still bailout-dependent Greece.
What is non-negotiable is the fact that the final figure for the primary budget surplus for 2017 cannot drop below 2.2 percent of GDP, regardless of whatever one-off social spending measure the Tsipras government implements. With a minimum 2.2 percent figure posted after execution of the 2017 budget, a “cushion” of 800 million euros is still expected to be set aside.
