More than 7 million notifications for the payment of Unified Property Tax (ENFIA) have been uploaded on the website of Greek Independent Authority for Tax Revenues taxisnet.gr.
6,331,155 property owners are called to pay a total 0f 3,093,464,173 euros.
According to statistics data published by the IATR, the ENFIA 2018 notifications refer to 7,310,185 property owners, natural person and legal entities.
However, a total of 6,331,155 owners will pay the property tax as for 979,030 owners a property tax of less than one euro has been calculated and authorities do not ask it to be paid.
Apparently due to recent changes in the calculation of the property tax with regards to ‘objective values’, a total of 1,414,225 property owners will be either decreased tax when compared to 2017 or will be exempted. The total worth of reductions and exemptions is €95,328,835.
From the 6,311,155 property owners, 6,279,207 natural persons will pay 2.642 billion euros, while 51,948 legal entities will pay 450,794 euros.
Payments can be made in five installments with the first to be scheduled towards the end of September and the last one scheduled for end of January 2019.
Depending on the total amount of the due tax, installments vary from €1,01 to more than 50 euros.
Sadly, the is no discount when a property owner pays the whole tax amount in one off payment.
I remember well when the ENFIA was imposed in 2011 as one of the collecting measures to collect revenues and pay interest to creditors in the framework of the first bailout, PASOK politicians claimed it was “a temporary measure.”
Seven years later and taxpayers are called to pay the tax independently of whether they can afford an extra expense of a few hundred euros per year or not.
What makes many property owners angry is that they have to pay this additional tax year in, year out even for their first residence, that is for a house that makes no profit.
They are angry for having to pay a kind of rent for the home they own and for which they have paid all legal taxes when they purchased it.
If one considers that 1,000,000 people in Greece are still unemployed, with the majority of them being long-time jobless, or that more than 50% of workers in private sector have part-time jobs, the ENFIA is a levy that not very many can afford.
