By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

At least €694 million in tax debt was added to her… notebooks AADE in November, an amount increased by 16% compared to the corresponding month last year, when the debts were at €597 million.

Overall, however, for the first 11 months of the year, the picture is much better than last year as unpaid taxes this year are at €5.6 billion compared to €7.3 billion in the corresponding period last year, a decrease of almost 23%.

In total, the Greeks owe €105 billion in taxes, of which it is assumed that €79 billion can be collected. A much improved picture compared to the beginning of the year when the respective figures were €114.5 billion and €88.5 billion and this is due to debt cancellations mainly but also to AADE’s efforts to collect old debts.

However, AADE’s efforts to collect against the new overdue debt – i.e. the one that was born during the year – have been more successful, with the collection rate in terms of taxes having jumped from 13% in January to 40% in November.

The figures show a significant improvement in tax compliance compared to previous years in 3 of the 4 main tax collection categories:

Personal income taxes are paid on time at a rate of 76.1%:

In 2022 the corresponding percentage was 74.69% and

In 2021 only 72.1%

Legal entities pay on time by 90%, 3 points above 87% in 2022, while in 2021 the corresponding percentage was 88.3%

At 79% the compliance rate of taxes on real estate from

77.2% in 2022 and

73.9% in 2021

Only VAT collection has worsened with the compliance rate this year falling to 84.7% from 85.3% last year and 86.3% in 2021.

The number of debtors to the tax office decreased in November by approximately 35,000 compared to October, to 3.9 million. Compared to November 2022, there are approximately 115,000 fewer debtors.

€1.49m have already been subjected to compulsory collection measures, i.e. confiscations or even auctions, while €2.1m are at risk of compulsory collection measures as they owe more than €500.