The story with the skeletons of arrears has dragged on.
Debts of companies that have disappeared, that nature has swallowed the carcasses of their factories, such as Piraeus Patraiki, the old state Olympic Airwaysthe Acropolis Stock Exchange (structured bond scandal), remain written on its records Independent Public Revenue Authority and each government passes the hot potato to the next.
Although the Ministry of National Economy itself is not in a position to assess which amounts are eligible for collection and which are not, previous studies carried out during the years of the memorandums had shown that these do not exceed 30 – 40 billion euros. Apparently today there will be even less.
Instead of finally doing the big scrapping, of putting all these uncollectible debts of the skeletons in the uncollectibles and writing them off with faster procedures, AADE yesterday made public data showing that the total overdue debt amounts to the dizzying amount of 107.18 billion euros.
From this debt only the 26.3 billion euros are considered uncollectible with the actual overdue debt limited to 80.86 billion euros.
The most interesting of her statistics AADE is the number of debtors. Taxpayers and businesses with debt have consolidated just below the 4 million. February was specific 3,878,712.
We owe so many, so much, as about the 40% of national GDP in 2023?
Obviously not, but no one can say exactly how many owe and how much. Quite simply, because in order to write off a debt that has become uncollectible, according to the Public Revenue Collection Code to be completed criminal procedure at the expense of the debtors, with the issuance of an irrevocable court decision.
In addition to the fact that thousands of cases drag on for years in the courts, in order for the debt to be definitively written off, both the prescribed actions for characterizing it as inadmissible collection must also be completed, as well as the research abroad to establish the non-existence of the debtor’s assets or his claims against third parties..
It is important that AADE divides the overdue debt into old, i.e. what concerns up to and including the end of 2023 new, that is, that which was “born” within the first two months of 2024.
Therefore, in the first two months of the year new debts were “born”. 1.736 billion euros of which the 1.52 billion are unpaid taxes. Of these, they were collected 294 million eurosthat is, the 17%.
Removing one’s 1.73 billion from the total actual due debt of 80.86 billion eurosthe remainder of 79 billion euros is the old overdue.
What is collected from it? In the first two months of 2024, receipts amounted to just 665 million euros. Something less than that 1%. Even if the amounts have increased by 13% over the receipts of the first half of 2023, it is still minimal.
DEVELOPMENT OF COLLECTIONS AGAINST OLD DUE DATE
If we want the picture to be reversed, the framework for uncollectible debts must be changed, the Public Revenue Collection Codeto make it easier to “write off” old debts related to ghost companies.
But we’re not there yet. And so the tax authorities insist on dealing with debtors’ heirs although they have disinherited, with debts of taxpayers who have passed away and remain there with the expectation that their heirs will pay them, or with debts of businesses that have been locked up and “inflated” by fines imposed on them.
There is no more iconic example than the 5.5 billion euros in Acropolis AHEPEYthe largest fine ever imposed by the establishment of the Greek state and which, with interest and surcharges, is said to have exceeded the 13 billion euros.
In this fantasy skeleton numbers game, it is estimated that natural persons owe the IRS 40.8 billion while businesses around the 65.4 billionwith the old Olympic Aviationto continue to figure among those who still owe.
Names that have been shrouded in oblivion insist in 2024 that they are keeping the tax authorities busy instead of being freed up to deal with real tax evasion cases.
