ECONOMY

Carrots for settlement of outstanding debts

Taxpayers with outstanding debts will get the chance to pay their dues in 37 installments, according to a new measure the Finance Ministry is preparing. The government’s aim is to encourage as many taxpayers as possible to settle their debts while bolstering state revenues, which lagged dramatically in the first half of the year.

The settlement process was first announced last October and provided for the repayment of debts in up to 45 monthly installments, offering taxpayers the chance to take advantage of the process at any point provided they also covered the installments they had missed in one go in order to catch up.

Now, however, the government plans to offer incentives to taxpayers with debts to the state who did not take up the initial offer. They will be able to do so now without paying for all the installments they have missed since the process started.

This is one of the measures the ministry will adopt in order to raise some of the 3 billion euros of revenues that had been budgeted for the first six months of the year but were not raised.

Other measures include launching automatic checks on companies that were exempted from the debt settlement process but which have high turnovers or real estate valued at more than 400,000 euros.

The ministry is optimistic that public revenues will get an additional boost from checks on some 10,000 taxpayers with debts of at least 150,000 euros apiece. The inspections will be conducted by private bodies such as law firms and auditing companies.

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