By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

On-going 2022 income tax returns, not 2021 income tax returns, will be extended Market Pass.

Given that between 2021 and 2022 the income situation of many taxpayers will have possibly changed significantly – either positively or negatively – the financial staff and specifically Haris Theocharis who will “run” the second phase of the Market Pass believe that it is fairer that everything be done with more recent insight into consumer incomes.

The details of the extension will be determined in the near future, but according to the information so far, the Ministry of Finance has no intention of asking the 2.8 million citizens who used the Market Pass – either with the physical card or with cash – to resubmit their applications.

Even those who had applied and were rejected will not need to submit an application. On the contrary, the system will consider that all of them have already submitted their applications and will internally evaluate them – as it is called in the “tax dialect” – but based on the updated incomes as presented in this year’s tax returns.

According to the Deputy Minister of Finance Haris Theoharis the system is expected to open for only a few days to give the opportunity to apply for aid to those who did not do so the first time either because they snubbed the measure or because they knew they did not meet the income and property criteria which, with the existing data, will not change .

As for the duration of the extension, the scenario that wants the last payment of the second phase to be made at the end of October gathers the most possibilities. Thus, the money would be utilized in November and as an official of the Ministry of Finance told “so we will have reached almost the end of the year”.

This is important because, based on the current EU guidelines for the gradual lifting of measures to support households and businesses against inflation, the extension of the Market Pass cannot pass to 2024.

In this context, it is reasonable that the Ministry of Finance asks taxpayers to speed up the submission of tax returns so that there is no need to extend the deadline that expires on July 30.

Twenty days before the sand in the hourglass is saved, about 4.23 million tax returns have been submitted, that is, about 2/3 have hit the submit button.

50% are zero, 33.2% are debit with the average tax amounting to €1111 and 16.8% are credit with the average tax refund reaching €356.