Draft budget deals new blow to property owners
Property owners are set to suffer a fresh blow as the draft budget tabled by the government in Parliament on Monday provides for an increase in objective values and a reduction in the tax-free ceiling for real estate.
With objective property values (estimates used for tax purposes) rising from the start of 2012, real estate owners will see their tax burden increase dramatically in the new year, given also the recent levy imposed on properties that will be added on to electricity bills and which foreign nationals who own property in Greece will also have to pay.
This budget may well be the last chance the government has to turn things around and lead the economy out of the recession, even if it does involve extremely painful measures for taxpayers.
The draft budget contains new measures to the effect of 7.1 billion euros, including the application of the single salary system for civil servants, reductions in pensions and bringing the price of heating oil up to the same level as that of diesel, a measure due to take effect from next October.
The fiscal plan for next year forecasts a public debt to the amount of more than 391 billion euros, or 181.8 percent of the country?s projected gross domestic product.
GDP will contract by 2.5 percent next year, against a forecast last year for a return to growth in 2012, while unemployment will come to 16.4 percent. Investment will shrink further, by 4 percent, while private consumption will go down by 3.8 percent. The aim is for a primary surplus of 1.5 percent of GDP.
Revenues are projected to increase by 5.08 percent from this year, with all the focus being on taxing citizens more: Revenues from taxpayers are forecast to increase by 30.88 percent next year, to reach 54 billion euros. As for tax revenues from properties, they are seen growing by 2.65 billion euros, an amazing 235 percent hike.
The country?s finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, issued a statement suggesting that the measures in the draft budget will secure the realization of the fiscal targets for 2012 and complete a dense and tough effort of fiscal adjustment.
?The fiscal streamlining as well as the fulfillment of the pledges our country has undertaken vis-a-vis its institutional partners for the decisive promotion of structural changes, form the conditions for the full application of the decisions the eurozone summit meeting made in July regarding Greece,? Venizelos stated.
