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Towards a settlement of the tax debts

08/11/2011 14:46
The executive power seems to approve the adoption of the draft law of DISY Vice President, Averof Neophytou on the settlement of the tax debts accumulated until 2008.

After the end of the ex-officio session of the House Finance Committee, its Chairman and DIKO MP, Nicolas Papadopoulos stated that the Finance Ministry agrees with the approval of the proposal, while the Income Superintendent cannot predict the amount of money that will end up to the IRD funds from the write off of the fines and interests.

According to Mr. Papadopoulos, the Superintendent believes that the proposal is fiscally neutral since it cannot predict how much the IRD will collect from the money required today. “Therefore, the specific write off of fines and interests might lead to a further inflow of money to the state funds so that the state will not lose any revenues”.

The members of the Committee are waiting for the Legal Service state whether the draft law is constitutional since several issues on the unfavourable discrimination of the tax payers might emerge.

“The possibility of write off of tax debts, fines and interests should not be left open, if there is no clear proposal as to how the state will proceed with this write off”, he added.

The draft law provides for the introduction of a law for the special settlement of the tax debts until the tax year of 2008.

Among others, it provides for arrangements for the write off of part of the interests or the additional charges on the tax debts until 2008, which in certain cases exceed the sum of the initial tax debt.

The write off, according to the proposal, will be carried out given that until December 31, 2011 the obligated entities settle their tax obligations in full.

In fact, it provides for the write off of the sum of interests and additional burdens on the tax debts until December 31, 2009, which exceeds 5% of the total debts given that the obligated entities settle their initial tax obligations in full, paying at the same time 5% of the total imposed interests and charges.