Ministry puts off demanding tax reforms

The Finance Ministry is opting for a one-month delay in the submission of a tax bill that will contain the difficult changes to income taxation and the rise in tax rates for farmers.

Although the third bailout deal provides for the measures to be implemented within October, the ministry is reading the new program in a different way and intends to table the hard bill just before the final draft of the 2016 budget.

Instead, the ministry will table a milder tax bill in the first half of this month that will incorporate the extension of 11,500 cases close to their statute of limitations, the new clauses on the voluntary revelation of undeclared incomes by taxpayers, and the details of the asset registry (“Periousiologio”).

Changes to the Financial Crime Unit (SDOE) will also be postponed by 15 days, with its staff set to be transferred to the General Secretariat for Public Revenues, along with the cases they are handling.