To the Minister of the Interior Mr. Panagiotis Theodorikakos
The Deputy Minister of Interior Mr. Theodoros Livanios
The President of KEDE Mr. Dimitris Papastergiou
Here Athens, 1.12.2020
TOPIC: TO RESTART THE KEDE’S MUNICIPAL FEES PLATFORM WITH THREE NEW RULES!
Dear Minister, Mr. Deputy Minister, Mr. President
The POMIDA is the daily receiver of strong protests from property owners from all over the country, who did not know and did not benefit from the favorable provisions that came into force at the proposal of POMIDA until 30.9.2020, that they are being asked by the Municipalities for incredible sums after fines for retrospective municipal fees for cleaning, lighting and 11-year TAP, for undeclared areas and for non-electrified properties. This is because the provisions that automatically came back into force are “draconian” and completely unenforceable. The reasons for the citizens’ protests are four:
1. In empty and non-electrified spaces, the declaration exempts the owner from municipal cleaning fees & lighting only from the date of its submission to the revenue service, and not from the day of power failure, contrary to the previous provision of 2005, for which we had a 20-year struggle, which exempted the citizen retroactively and regardless of the time of filing of the responsible declaration, as the Ombudsman had also given an opinion.
2. In undeclared area the inaccurate declaration of areas for the imposition of municipal cleaning and lighting fees (usually five times higher for commercial use than for domestic use!) incurs a 60% fine, overdue 100% while for the imposition of TAP the fine is 200% of the original debt!
3. The statute of limitations is currently 11 years and will reach 20 years in 2030, when it comes to taxes, fees, rights and contributions to OTAs that arise “because of not submission by the debtors of the necessary data for their certification or submission of inaccurate or incomplete data or wrongly certified debts”, added with the fines on the debts of the last five years (as defined by the well-known provision – “carmaniola” of article 32 of Law 4304/2014!!!).
- Procedurally, due to the current lockdown for any new declaration, citizens need months to make telephone appointments with the Municipal revenue services…
This development makes imperative the request for the immediate re-operation of the KEDE online application (platform) from 1.1.2021, but with the following three new conditions and rules:
- In the vacant and non-electrified areas, the obligation to declare the owners should be abolished, and from the time of power failure, known to the Municipalities from the online connection with the DEDDIE), an automatic exemption from the municipal cleaning and lighting fees should apply , as long as they are empty. 1.1.2020, at a rate of +20% for the first half of the delay, and +5% for each subsequent half, just as it also applies to the settlement of arrears, and with a maximum limit of +50%.
- The statute of limitations for the claims of the local authorities to return by law to five years, which now also applies to the tax claims of the State, so that the citizens they can meet their payment.
Otherwise we will soon be led to bloated debts, massive foreclosures and auctions of real estate by local authorities, especially the residents of the district and Hellenism Abroad.
At your disposal for any clarification and cooperation
Secretary
Stratos I. Paradias Tasos G. Vappas
