They're even reducing the tax exemption

The Finance ministry is examining the imposition of a poll tax for the residents of expensive areas and taxes for those who declared incomes below the tax-free level of 12.000 euros per year. Meanwhile, as revealed by protothema.gr, the economy team are rushing to stop the "bleedout" of tax refunds (so far, 4 out of 10 slips are in credit), and will recheck those who rely on expenditure receipts to recover taxes of over 1.000 euros, while the official limit was 1.500 as announced by the ministry itself.

Although greater emphasis is placed on cuts in expenditure, in its negotiations with the Troika and its attempt to collect 7bil for this year (26bil by 2015), the ministry is considering the implementation of new hikes.

Specifically:

    * a reduction of tax exemption for individuals from 12.000 euros (for singles) to 10.000 or 8.000 per year. The measure affects 3 to 4 taxpayers. Because of recession, dismissals and salary reductions, more people would have been excluded from income tax in 2012, with a huge loss of revenue for the state
    * a special contribution from those who have properties in expensive areas of the country, with an objective value of over 4.000 or 5.000 euros per square meter. This goes for approximately 200-250.000 owners in Ekali, Kifissia, Psihiko, Kolonaki, Vouliagmeni, Varkiza, Glyfada, Mykonos, Santorini, Thessaloniki, Panorama, etc. Although the calculation of the contribution has not been determined, the objective is to collect 200 million. This measure will cover the failure of the special contribution on real estate in 2010, as thousands of large property owners refrained from completing FMAP statements and properties worth over 400.000 euros could not be located. Via the proposed system, the IRS will automatically impose a tax on owners according to the location of their property, even if it is less than 100 square meters or 400.000 euros

The tax measures that are being discussed include the abolition of tax-free status for freelancers, the transfer of products belonging to the higher VAT rate, the introduction of income criteria for granting exemptions, and new changes regarding receipts, so as not to benefit those who declare high incomes even further.