Of Chrysostom Chufi

With the debate on the new tax-flash package opening for the good-from the government itself-in view of the September Thessaloniki International Exhibition-various demands of tax reduction by various bodies arrive daily on Niki Street.

One of them is the reduction in taxation taxation from rents, a possibility that the Minister of Finance did not Kyriakos Pierrakakis Speaking at the Congress of the Economic Postman.

Even officials of Ministry They admit that as the rent tax scale is structured, it favors tax evasion. With the current system, the first 12,000 € income are taxed at a rate of 15%.

From 12,001 to € 35,000 the rate is launched to 35% and the excess income has a rate of 45%.

That is, a taxpayer with an income of 12,000 euros will pay a tax of 1,800 euros.

At 15,000 € the tax is launched at 2,850 €

In this big gap between the first and second scale they see in the ministry that tax evasion can… say.

The numbers of tax returns show clear evidence of tax evasion.

Last year (ie 2023 income) 1,081,634 taxpayers reported € 4,69bn from rental receipts. 4,336 € Average annual income or 360 € per month average rent.

For incomes of 2022, 1,041,393 taxpayers declared 4.1 billion income. 4.066 € Average annual income or 339 €/month rent.

They are definitely far from the 255 € average rent announced by Kyriakos Pierrakakis In the presentation of the return of a rent of a rent up to € 800 from November and every year but certainly the feeling is that they are much lower rents than the market image.

At the same time many surveys show Improving market image.

For example, that of Kapa Research on behalf of the Pan -Hellenic Federation of Property Owners, which shows that 1 in 5 apartment tenants and 1 in 3 professional tenants pay the rent with delay. Numbers that have improved significantly compared to 2018 when the corresponding rates of delayed payments were 38% and 49%.

Numbers that have improved despite the fact that the landlords themselves admit that in the last three years have significantly increased their ‘claims’ by the tenants of their property:

  • 86% say they have increased rent by up to 20%
  • 12% admits an increase between 20% and 50%
  • 2% has increased the rent more than 50%

The conditions have therefore been formed to intervene in the scale. After all, a significant reduction in taxation would possibly push more homeowners currently closed, to get them to the market.

The obvious solution for most would be the interference of another intermediate rate between 15% and 35%.

Property owners have proposed a 50% reduction in rates as they argue that this system is counterproductive as it pushes them to the short -term lease that the country is facing the housing program. That is, to go to a system with a rate of 7.5% for the first 12,000 €, 17.5% for the section from 12,001 € to 35,000 € and 22.5% for the exaggeration.

They would not say no of course to a horizontal reduction of the rates by 10 points as a model with 5% – 25% – 35% leads to the first step in which most taxpayers gather in even greater relief.

In the “backups” there is also the complete abolition of the autonomous taxation system for rents and their integration into the general income tax scale, which would favor low incomes or those who only have rental income.

The truth about the imbalance on the taxation scale is also demonstrated by comparison with other European countries. Global Property Guide shows that Greece for a monthly rent of up to 1500 €10th highest tax rate in 35 countries.

But for higher rents, our country has the 3rd highest tax rate.