Last year’s additional taxes failed to pay off

Last year the government implemented additional tax measures of 2 billion euros in compliance with the third bailout program. Nevertheless tax revenues grew by just 45 million euros in 2017 compared to 2016, according to official figures.

Worse, if the takings last year that stemmed from direct and indirect tax dues from previous years are deducted, the final figure for tax revenues from the 2017 financial year shows a drop of 332 million euros, with tax compliance rates declining across all main categories.

Last year’s official budget data showed tax takings at 47.564 billion euros, against 47.519 billion in 2016. In 2017 the Finance Ministry activated tax measures totaling 5.117 billion euros, up from 3.057 billion euros in 2016. The bulk of those new measures concerned the “reform of income tax regulations,” which should have fetched an additional 700 million euros, and the solidarity levy, which should have generated extra revenues of 620 million euros, but the new measures have clearly not paid off.

Notably the income tax of corporations and individuals showed a considerable decline of almost 400 million euros year-on-year, as the sum of takings reached 12.973 billion euros in 2017, down from 13.379 billion in 2016.