Plans to Reduce Property Tax

The government wants to reduce the rates of the new Single Property Tax, which is to apply from 2014, aiming to lighten the load on owners of plots within town-planning zones.

The issue of the new tax was discussed yesterday at a meeting between Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos, with the two men agreeing that property owners should not pay more tax. That would mean that the total tax amount property owners would have to pay would be less than the 4.15 billion euros provided for in the original plan drawn up on the recommendation of the country's creditors, collectively known as the troika.

Samaras and Venizelos also agreed that any reductions, should there be an agreement between the troika and the Finance Ministry, will affect landowners, as the original plan provides for a disproportionate burden on them.

All will depend on the negotiations that the heads of the troika will hold with the finance ministry concerning the final rates for the new tax from January.

In their report, the creditors insist the current status should be retained, but the government is determined not to accept it. This forms yet another front on which Athens and its lenders are set to clash.