The Ministry of National Economy and Finance (ΥΠΕΘΟΟ) is drawing a distinction between cases of incorrect property declarations and those involving the complete concealment of assets, with Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis telling Parliament that a technical amendment would be made to the relevant provision of the tax bill.
As a result, owners will be required to pay tax retrospectively on properties deemed “missing” from the tax authorities’ records because they were never declared on the E9 form. They will clearly not be covered by the favourable arrangement allowing property details to be corrected without additional ENFIA property tax or penalties.
By contrast, those who have declared their properties but not provided the correct floor area will be able to correct the errors without incurring taxes or penalties.
“There is a difference between someone declaring a property with fewer square metres and someone concealing its existence entirely,” Mr Pierrakakis said, making clear that “those who did not declare their property at all will pay the taxes due, because a compliant citizen cannot be made to bear the burden of someone who declared nothing”.
The Ministry also made clear that the opportunity to bring property details up to date without penalties would not be repeated.
“This is the last chance,” he stressed, urging citizens to declare the actual details of their property now, because, as he went on to say, the rules would then apply “with no exceptions, no further grace period and no caveats”.
Meanwhile, banks and credit servicing companies (servicers) are entirely excluded from the arrangement for properties they hold.
Ahead of MIDA
The final opportunity to correct property details comes shortly before MIDA is activated, giving the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) the ability to cross-check data and identify discrepancies between the declared and actual state of property holdings.
As Kyriakos Pierrakakis acknowledged, “for many years, the state operated without knowing precisely who owned what, how each property was actually used, or whether the declared details reflected reality”, adding that the information was scattered across different registers, with inaccuracies and discrepancies, and that some properties were not declared as they should have been.
“We are setting out to change this situation,” he said, explaining that the new Register would make it possible to identify discrepancies that had largely gone unnoticed until now.
As part of this effort, owners who had declared their properties with incorrect details will be able to make corrections without penalties for discrepancies in floor area. “We cannot make citizens bear today the cost of a shortcoming that the state itself had for decades,” he noted.