ECONOMY

Tax statement upload deadline is one month after tax-freedom day

Tax statement upload deadline is one month after tax-freedom day

The Finance Ministry is informally granting taxpayers an extra day for the submission of their income tax declarations for 2018, pushing the deadline back from midnight on Monday to midnight on Tuesday.

The approximately 100,000 taxpayers who have not yet filed their statements risk incurring a fine ranging between 100 and 500 euros if they fail to make the revised deadline – with Wednesday being the deadline for the payment of the first installment of any additional tax due.

Up until Monday taxpayers had submitted 6,087,025 income declarations, which corresponded to 8,446,691 tax clearance documents – i.e for individual taxpayers. This discrepancy between statements and taxpayers is because spouses will get separate tax clearances for the first time this year.

To date, the processing of the submitted declarations shows that three out of 10 taxpayers will have to pay extra tax on top of the deductions made over the course of last year. Consequently, 2,896,512 taxpayers, or 34.19 percent of the total, are due to pay extra tax that averages at 1,066 euros per person.

The first tranche of the extra tax is due by Wednesday, the second by September 30 and the third by November 29. Besides income tax, the tax clearance documents also incorporate the solidarity levy, the professional levy (for certain professions), and the tax deposit for next year, concerning self-employed professionals.

Taxpayers also have the option of paying in 12 monthly tranches, either via credit card or through the tax authorities’ fixed 12-installment plan, but these methods incur a 5 percent interest charge.

Meanwhile, the Markos Dragoumis Center for Liberal Studies (KEFiM) said on Monday that Greeks have to work 180 days per year to pay their annual taxes: 73 days for indirect taxes, 46 for direct ones and 61 days for social security contributions.

Therefore Greeks’ so-called tax freedom day for this year was June 30. This is a significant improvement from last year’s tax-freedom day, which was July 18, though this is the fourth-worst among European Union member-states, according to KEFiM.

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