Major debtors refuse to pay
Taxpayers with smaller arrears are much more willing to have their tax debts rearranged
Small tax debtors are making use of the favorable provisions offered by the Finance Ministry, entering the 72- or 120-installment arrangements that have been instituted, or even the fixed arrangement.
In contrast, big debtors, who also owe the largest part of the debt to the tax authorities, do not seem to be interested in the ministry’s arrangements or the repayment of their debts. Specifically, amounts of more than 10 million euros are owed by 1,325 taxpayers, with their total debt exceeding €67.7 billion. However, they have made arrangements for some €201 million of that debt.
According to data from the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE), out of the €113.7 billion of total overdue arrears, only €4.69 billion has been settled. That is, 4.1% of the total debt or 5.3% of the actual debt collection has entered into some kind of arrangement. Of particular interest are figures that show that most of the regulated balance – i.e. 73.4% (or €3.44 billion) – is concentrated in the category of debt up to €300,000. In the debt categories above €300,000, 26.6% of the regulated balance has been collected – i.e. €1.25 billion.
In addition, of the total receipts for the year 2022, 48.3% (€2.5 billion) came from debts that had been settled. As far as old debt was concerned – i.e. that created before 2022 – most of the takings (88.1%) came from three categories of taxes. Specifically, 35.8% came from income tax, 31.9% from value-added tax and 20.4% from property taxes.
Last year, the majority (81.2%) of debtors – i.e. 3,990,717 people – were in the debt categories of less than €3,000, with overdue debts at a rate of 1.4% or €1.64 billion.
By contrast, in the categories of debts greater than €300,000, a very small percentage of debtors was interested – i.e. 0.5% (20,943 debtors) – who accounted for 85.2% (€96.87 billion) of the total overdue balance.
In the intermediate categories of basic debt from €3,000 to €300,000, 18.3% of all debtors (731,820) corresponded to 13.4% (€15.239 billion) of the total overdue balance.
