To the Minister of the Interior Mr. Panagiotis Theodorikakos
COMMUNICATION: To the President of KEDE Mr. Dimitris Papastergiou
Athens, 19.8.2020
Dear Minister
With surprise and wonderwe read in the press your statement that you are not going to the deadline for the declaration to the OTAs is extended. of undeclared real estate areas but also of their empty and non-electrified spaces, which is due to expire on 31.8.2020.
The reason we proposed both you and and the previous government (in terms of non-electrified) have accepted the existing favorable arrangements, it is very simple:The provisions which will automatically come back into force from 1.9.2020 onwards are completely unenforceable as they provide for the following:
-In undeclared areas the inaccurate declaration of areas for the imposition of municipal cleaning and lighting fees incurs a fine of 60 %, the overdue 100% while for the imposition of TAP the fine is 200% on the original debt! It should be noted that municipal fees for commercial use are on average five times higher than for residential use!
-In vacant and non-electrified areas the declaration will result in an exemption from municipal cleaning fees & lighting from the date of its submission to the revenue service, and not from the day of the power cut, unlike 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 responsible statement, as the Ombudsman had also given an opinion.
-The statute of limitations is currently 20 years when it comes to taxes, fees, rights and contributions to the OTAsthat arise “due to non-submission by the debtors of the necessary data for their certification or submission of inaccurate or incomplete data or wrongly certified debts”, increased by the fines on the debts of the last five years (as defined today by the well-known provision -“carmaniola” of article 32 of Law 4304/2014!!!).
-Procedurally, due to anti-coronavirus measures for any new declaration citizens will need months to make phone appointments with the Municipal revenue services.
The operation should therefore continue of this platform, with very low fines, gradually increasing, for those owners who delay, as is done with the arbitrary ones!
However, if you decide not to extend the current legislative regime and to stop the operation of the platform immediately, you must urgently make the following legislative changes:
- For undeclared areas, the fines should be reduced to 25% of the basic debt.
- For empty and non-electrified areas, the obligation to declare the owners should be abolished, and by the , now known to the Municipalities(online with DEDDIE), time of power cut, automatic exemption from municipal cleaning and lighting fees applies, as long as they are empty.
- The statute of limitations for the claims of local authorities should immediately return to five years, which is now also valid for the claims of the State.
Otherwise we will be fatally led to inflated debts, mass confiscations and real estate auctions, especially of the residents of the region and the Hellenic Diaspora, whom the State was not at all interested in informing effectively, even at the last hour…
The President The Secretary General Stratos I. Paradias Tasos G. Vappas
