Greek FinMin Got a New Idea: Poll Tax of 150 EUR on the Way…

Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Economy

And when you think, you’ve seen everything, Greece’s Finance Ministry is always good for surprises – under the Troika pressure, of course… Finance Ministry reportedly surprised coalition governemtn partners Venizelos (PASOK ) and Kouvelis (Democratic Left) during their meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Thursday:  A poll tax of minimum 150 euro. Imposed to whom? It’s not very clear yet as discussion is still going on.
The tabled proposal is to impose the poll tax of 150 EUR to property owners who lease to third parties, to self-employed, to individual businesses, and those those with income from agriculture who are not professional farmers.
The poll tax is expected to affect thousands of taxpayers.

“It should be noted that the Greek economic team and the Troika seem to target the main suspects for widespread tax evasion, self-employed, property owners who rent their real estate and those with agricultural income who are not professional farmers.” (in.gr)

The poll tax will be horizontal, which means that the property owner who rents one property and the one who rents ten onjects will pay the same amount: 150 EUR!
The poll tax will be implemented according to requirements of the Memorandum of Understanding signed last March, that foresaw the increase of tax revenues by 2 billion euro.
That means, the package of 11.5 billion euro will be indeed a package of 13.5 billion euro.
I dare remember there was talk in summer that the package would be 2 billion more than 11.5 billion euro. At that time I had thought it had to do with the holes in the budget-target of 2012.
Venizelos expressed his objection saying this poll tax is ‘unjust and horizontal, Kouvelis said something like “I didn’t hear anything about it.”
No matter what the reason is, a well kept secret has been revealed.
Is this the “surprise measure” a private broadcaster reported a couple of days ago?
PS next poll tax could refer to “brown-haired men, married with two kids, shoe size 45″. To every average Greek, so to say… Exempted will be lawyers or doctors who make 100K per year but declare income of  50,000 euro.