Fines imposed by the Tax authorities remain uncollected

The Finance Ministry seems unable to collect even the confirmed fines imposed by court decisions in favor of the State, since of almost 8.2 billion euros the tax authorities have received only 615 million euros.

According to information collected and disseminated (at the Troika’s request) by the General Secretariat of Information Systems of the Ministry of Finance, from the cases that reached the tax courts 8.2 billion euros were awarded to the State. Despite the much-publicized tax chase, until now the state has received just 7.5%.

The memorandum sets a tight schedule for speeding up tax proceedings, placing as the first task the hearing of 50% of the cases pending in courts by June, with priority given to tax cases of over 1 million euros. About 80% of the cases must be heard by the end of 2012, and the total 100% by the end of July 2013.

However, more than 170,000 tax cases are still pending, which could bring more than 30 billion euros to the Greek government. Of these, 138,720 have yet to get a trial date.

Under the existing provisions, in case of an appeal by the taxpayer, 50% of the disputed tax is certified and collected and then the case is brought before the court that awards the final payment or the refund amount to the citizen, if it considers that there are legitimate reasons for it.