ECONOMY

State fishing in debt pool of 76 bln euros

Alternate Finance Minister Nadia Valavani on Friday tabled an amendment in Parliament to a part of the bill on the humanitarian crisis regarding the lump sum repayment of expired debts.

The one-off payment regulation will come into force once the measure is published in the Government Gazette and expire on March 27. It provides for the write-off of up to 100 percent of the penalties and fines imposed on unpaid debts, depending on the amount cleared by debtors.

The government is hoping to retrieve some of the 76 billion euros owed to the state, as debtors have only applied to pay 2.33 billion euros of that via a payment scheme. The biggest share of expired debts to the state, amounting to 26.5 billion euros, concerns debts from fines imposed by the Financial Crimes Squad (SDOE), which in practice are very difficult to collect.

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