Real estate owners in Greece will start paying the new Single Property Tax from July 2014 in six monthly instalments, according to a draft bill that was tabled in Parliament last week.
May 2014 will see the completion of the payment process for this year’s extraordinary tax paid via electricity bills, after which the payment of the new tax will start. The new tax is expected to raise a total of 2.65 billion euros. In 2015 the tax will be paid in nine instalments.
Greece’s creditors dispute the Finance Ministry’s figures and have asked for additional measures to the effect of 400 million euros after changes were made to the bill in response to the strong reaction by New Democracy and PASOK MPs. The shortfall will be covered by shaving 200 million off the Public Investments Program as well as other structural measures that are yet to be determined.
The new tax will shift the burden from small property owners to the 290,000 taxpayers whose property assets add up to at least 300,000 euros, as the latter will also pay the supplementary tax, totalling 380 million euros. Another 280 million euros will come from the supplementary tax to be paid by corporations.
The new single property tax bill, when finalised, is not expected to address the grave injustices attributed to the high objective values in real estate, which bear little resemblance to real market values. The Minister of Finances Yannis Stournaras, who dubbed the real estate tax as “the fairest” in a country with huge rates of tax evasion, argued that a re-evaluation of objective values was out of the question.
Sources: ekathimerini, tovima