Government seeking to reduce ENFIA tax for vulnerable social groups

The Ministry of Finance is planning a series of changes to the controversial ENFIA real estate tax for 2017, in order to relieve the burden for vulnerable social groups.

With public revenue on the rise, the government is hopeful that it will have the opportunity to carry out the changes. Among the scenarios being considered is the introduction of a tax-free threshold or reducing the initial tax rates. Other thoughts include introducing income and asset criteria for exemptions and discounts on the tax.

Among the other changes the Ministry is planning are for the ENFIA tax to be applied to the sum of a taxpayer’s assets, rather than the existing system of taxing each piece of real estate individually and introduction a supplementary tax when the total value of assets exceeds 200,000 euros.

Under the latest bailout agreement, the Greek government has to collect 2.65 billion euros from real estate, which suggests that the burden will in turn be passed on to the other taxpayers.