Property tax to stay

IN a move to increase their income, the Greek government are to continue with the very unpopular property tax,a move that will certainly increase pressure on the whole country.

  The government has decided that the special property tax introduced in 2011 will be tagged on to electricity bills again this year after all, according to Public Power Corporation (PPC) officials.

  After repeated meetings and the realization that the Finance Ministry will be unable to collect the sum of 2.2 billion euros corresponding to the emergency tax, the government resorted to the more secure but painful solution of collecting the tax through PPC, despite earlier indications that this would not be the case this year.

Up until yesterday the Finance Ministry had said that it was looking for the best way to collect the so-called special extraordinary tax for all properties connected to the power grid, though officials at the power company suggested that the decision had already been made.   In fact, PPC said that it had been asked to include the tax in all bills issued as of July 23, but the company countered that it did not have the time to issue bills with the tax before the end of the month. Unlike last year, when the tax was paid in two installments, this year’s tax will be paid in five installments, with the last two to due in 2013.   Everybody is being hit, and that includes us of course, but some will be hard pressed to pay up again. With jobs still at a premium, people are really being hurt by the austerity measures. Their argument is simple, if we have no work how do we not only pay the bills, but how do we feed are families?