Taxpayers owe 56.7 billion euros to the state

Greek taxpayers are led to failure to pay the consecutive taxes imposed by the state, as shown by the 13.2 billion "jump" by the overdue debts to the state in 2012.

According to data from the Finance ministry, outstanding debts of private citizens to the state rose to 56.7 billion euros by the end of last year from the 34.5 billion they had reached in 2011. However, this year the government was able to put in its funds around 2.8 billion euros, which were paid by those who in 2012 took advantage of the final setting offered by the state for their old unpaid debts.

Thus, the net debt that has remained unpaid and is transferred for collection in 2013 amounts to nearly 54 billion euros.

With a provision included in the multi-bill passed in Parliament, the state will be able to remove the assured outstanding debts from payments of its own debts to the state. So individuals who have unpaid debts to the tax office will get less money than they are entitled, after having first removed their own debts with the attendant surcharges.

However, the Troika has asked for more drastic measures, such as setting up an automatic warning mechanism for the debts of 2.3 million minor debtors who owe a total of 1.1 billion euros.

Other measures of enforced recovery have come to the negotiating table as well, such as the charging of bank accounts of debtors, assigning 10% of the staff of tax offices who will be released from other duties after the mergers to debt collector positions and the activation of the Major Debtors Unit, which will deal with 5,770 people with debts of 300,000 to 1 million euros each.

The Troika is also calling for more rigorous enforcement of the provisions of the State Revenue Collection Code, which among other things provides for the seizing of salaries and pensions of more than 1,000 euros a month, seizing of movable and immovable property and criminal prosecution for debts over 5,000 euros.