ATHENS: Expired debts to the state soared 14 percent year-on-year to 86.3 billion euros in 2015. This is partly due to the high taxes in recent years, with many taxpayers no longer able to meet their obligations to the state. However, it is just a few thousand taxpayers that owe the lion’s share of the debts.
Data from the General Secretariat of Public Revenues showed on Tuesday that almost 50 percent of taxpayers have debts to the tax authorities, while only 10.1 billion euros of the total 86.3 billion is seen as possible to collect.
The total number of taxpayers with arrears to the state amounted to 4,305,153 at the end of 2015, with 99.9 percent of them owing less than 1.5 million euros each. Notably the remaining 0.1 percent – or 5,221 taxpayers owing more than 1.5 million euros each – account for 77.1 percent of all taxes owed, or 66.56 billion euros.
