State debts grow 1.86 bln in a year
The Greek state’s expired debts to its suppliers are continuing to rise, depriving the market of necessary cash while demanding even more taxes. Finance Ministry data showed on Monday that state arrears to third parties amounted to 6.69 billion euros at the end of April.
While this does not constitute a significant increase from the end of March, it is 1.86 billion euros more than a year earlier, which means that the debts of the state to the market have grown by more than 1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product within 12 months.
Had that amount been returned to the market, not only would consumption have improved, and with it the indirect taxes collected, but the taxpaying capacity of enterprises would also have strengthened, reducing the need for new measures such as the indirect taxes the government has just voted on.
Out of that 6.69 billion euros, over 5.5 billion concerns unpaid debts to the state’s suppliers, and the remaining 1.18 billion is in the form of unpaid rebates of value-added tax (VAT).
Ministry data also showed that in the year to end-April, the state budget posted a primary surplus of 2.6 billion euros, compared to a primary surplus of 581 million euros in the same period last year.
