1,460-euro additional tax for 650,000 taxpayers

The tax payment notices arriving immediately after the elections bear tax charges of 1,460 euros on average. By early July, about 370,000 taxpayers will receive the second batch of slips, where the average tax payment amount will be almost double compared to last year.

According to the currently available data, the 370,000 tax returns submitted in June result in 540 million in taxes. Overall, from mid May until now authorities have cleared 650,000 tax statements that provide for 945 million euros in taxes.

Within June, the GSIS has validated about 13,000 statements providing for 25 million euros in tax refunds. But it is still unknown whether they will reach the beneficiaries. The tax authorities have been instructed to go through an exhaustive recheck on taxpayers and quite a few cases will either see their money being balanced with possible tax debts or even go into debt, since the check will erase exemptions and deductions for claimed amounts that were not accompanied by the necessary documents.

A big problem seems to exist mainly in the collection of VAT taxes. The total VAT collected in the January-May 2012 period amounted to 6,479 billion euros. During the same period last year, the amount stood at 7,392 billion euros. The decrease in revenue reflects both the impact of recession on tax revenues and the rise of tax fraud because of the electoral relaxation of the collection mechanisms.