Public economics

Tax declarations will be filed electronically only for income accumulated after January 1, 2017, decided Parliament on Wednesday.

The BGN 1,000 discount for declarations filed before March 31, 2017 is still valid.

Tax payers will now be able to correct the declaration once only.

The Greek Parliament's Budget Office on Wednesday strongly criticized the government's forecasts for the economy and its planned policies as reflected in the draft budget.

The government will reduce taxation on households and enterprises in 2017, Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis announced in an interview with Sunday's Kathimerini.

According to sources, the Greek government has reached a compromise with its creditors on the matter of collecting revenue from undeclared wealth. The recommended plan provides that taxpayers who voluntarily disclose undeclared wealth will be charged between 50 and 60% of the difference emerging after a tax audit on bank deposits and declared wealth.

The growing use of plastic money, combined with the increased value-added tax takings and the decision of more people to pay this year's Single Property Tax (ENFIA) in a lump sum sent the budget's net revenues soaring in September, which even came as a surprise to the Finance Ministry, which released the data on Tuesday.

The first draft of the 2017 budget, which will be submitted to Parliament on Monday, will contain new taxes adding up to an anticipated 1.55 billion euros.

Long queues to peak at the Tax Offices are reported on Friday, since it is the last day of the tax payments for millions of Greeks. The economic staff aims for 700 million Euros from ENFIA, 1,2 billion Euros from income taxes and at least 1 billion euros fom installments of old debts.

Road tax is set to decrease for owners of used cars that were first registered in another European Union country, according to a Finance Ministry circular issued on Thursday.

For instance, a 1.6L car registered in Greece in 2004, after its first registration in France in 2000, will pay road tax of 250 euros for 2017, against 265 euros in 2016.

A considerable portion of the underground economy has been forced out into the open as a result of the capital controls and the increased use of plastic money, contributing significantly to an increase in tax revenues, which in the January-August period exceeded their target by 364 million euros.

Millions of taxpayers will have to dish out about 1.8 billion euros by the end of this week to cover the second installment of income tax and the first payment of the Single Property Tax (ENFIA) due by September 30.

The government views this month as quite decisive in terms of the budget's execution, as a total of 4.7 billion euros will have to be collected by the end of the year.