By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

And the committee of sages was made for the evidence. After his order Deputy Minister of Finance Haris Theoharisthe General Secretary of Tax Policy Maria Psyllasigned the constitution of the six-member committee headed by herself.

The aim of the committee – which will meet once a month until it completes its work, but also on an emergency basis if urgent issues arise – is to capture the overall picture of the evidence in the tax system, to highlight the weaknesses and submit proposals to implement the pre-election commitment of the government to reduce them by 30% from 2025.

Given that the new tax bill passed significantly limits the activation of the presumptions for freelancers and the self-employed – specifically, €135 million of the €741m is calculated – the committee will emphasize the burden borne by employees and pensioners.

As he explained to official of the Ministry of Finance, the limitation of the presumptions by 30% does not mean an equal horizontal reduction. Otherwise we wouldn’t need the commission, he pointed out. On the contrary, the distortions and injustices of this taxation system will be examined.

Injustices that are many and have been accumulating all these years since as the presumptions have been applied with their current prices continuously since 2010 without any adjustment. 14 constitute an eternity, especially when 3 memoranda have preceded it.

From time to time the various agencies have arrived at his offices SEC proposals as have also been formulated in the public debate.

Indicatively, the presumption for the main residence starts from €40/sq.m. for surfaces up to 80 sq.m. and reaches €400/sq.m. for surfaces over 300 sq.m. Whether it is privately owned, leased or freely given is not taken into account at all.

The calculation of the presumption for the holiday homes is based on 12 months, while it is clear that its use is for a shorter period.

For cars, the presumption increases according to cubic capacity and age. Its use is not considered, only the months of possession. How fair are people buying an I.X. worth €10,000 to have a usage fee of €5,000 or how right it is to breathe and be charged with €3,000 (obviously meaning the presumption of living for the unmarried). In the past, there should be some obvious cases in which students are caught in the lens of presumptions.

It is certain that the “wise” will identify more.

In each case data show that every year 1 in 4 taxpayers are not taxed on their real income but on the imputed. The same data show that the overwhelming majority of “victims” of the presumptions are employees and pensioners who are NOT the obvious answer to the question “Who evades taxes”.

The latest figures available showed that around 1,750,000 taxpayers paid tax based on their assets such as real estate, cars, swimming pools, yachts and not what actually went into their pockets. So instead of the €3.1 billion they declared, they were taxed three times as much.

Of these, 1.1 million taxpayers or 2/3 were employed and retired. Only 100,000 were farmers and about 146,000 self-employed.

The largest discrepancy between declared and assumed income was shown by income earners. They declared only €205m, they were taxed almost tenfold, €2.1bn.