New ENFIA ready by year-end
The new Single Property Tax (ENFIA) table, going into effect from 2022, will be ready by the end of this year, with the inclusion of thousands of new zones expected to fetch an additional 300 million euros, which the government will return to all owners through rate reductions.
Although the government had originally planned to complete the new tax framework and its rates for the submission of the final budget draft, it appears that the competent committees need more time to prepare the new ENFIA, which will also incorporate the supplementary property tax.
Finance Ministry officials say they are not hurrying the completion of the new brackets and rates, as its result will be fiscally neutral in any case. They therefore explain that the amount to be collected will match this year’s €2.5 billion.
The inclusion of 3,643 new zones in the system will entail additional takings of €300 million, but this will be returned to property owners, mainly those whose taxable property rates (known as “objective values”) will increase significantly or even double after the adjustment that took place in the summer.
As for the government promise about an 8% average reduction in ENFIA dues for all owners, it will amount to some €200 million and will be covered by the state budget.
Kathimerini understands that the exercises being conducted by the 18-member committee are quite complex and present significant difficulties. The first problem regards the inclusion of areas where some calculation models lead to extraordinarily high rates, while other models lead to undertaxing. The experts are looking for the formula that would lead to an increase in dues for those areas, without causing distortions.
A second problem concerns the new calculation brackets and how the supplementary tax will be incorporated into the ENFIA. In practice the objective is to increase the rates for properties worth over €250,000, though the new ENFIA taxes each asset individually, and not based on an owner’s sum of assets, as is the case with the supplementary tax. That might lead to distortions, with owners of four €100,000 assets paying less than the owner of one €390,000 property.
