* Professional leases of facilities to businesses still affected by the coronavirus. The reduction will be valid for the months of September, October, November and December 2020.
* Rents of a main residence, when the tenant is an employee or the spouse of an employee in the above “affected” businesses, since his employment contract has been temporarily suspended due to Covid-19.
* Real estate leases to cover the housing needs of a dependent child, who is studying at an institution of higher education outside his place of permanent residence, as long as at least one parent is an employee of an affected company and whose employment contract has been temporarily suspended due to Covid-19.
* Residential leases to seafarers whose seafaring contract is still suspended. The reduction in this case will be effective from October.
The KAD of the leases to which the above applies (mainly retail) are listed here.
The conditions for rent reductions of at least 30% to apply are as follows:
* There must be a relevant agreement between owner and tenant, which can be reflected in an amending private agreement, or with the amending statement itself in the AADE lease application.
* To be submitted electronically by the owner to TAXISnet amending rental information declaration. This declaration should state the newly agreed reduced rent for the period September-December. In the NOTES field of the electronic declaration, it is useful to write the following:
“This agreement, according to the law, concerns the four-month period September-December 2020 From 1th January 2021 the rent will return to the normal amount of ….. euros.”
* To be accepted by the tenant the submitted amending statement of lease information. Not rejecting it is equivalent to accepting it.
* The agreed reduced rent must be paid on time, i.e. its payment must be on time. Otherwise the landlord is entitled to claim the full rent.
WHAT DOES THE LANDLORD ACCEPT THE REDUCTION GAINS
Besides that by making it easier for their tenant each owner reduces the risk of being without a tenant, which is the most important thing in today’s situationin the above cases of agreed reduction rents of at least 30%, the owner will have the following benefits:
* The uncollected amount due to an agreement will not be considered income and will not be subject to income tax and solidarity levy with the tenant for a rent reduction.
* The owner will be entitled to a tax deduction equal to 12% of the normal rent, regardless of whether the agreed reduction amounts to any greater percentage. To assert this right the owner must submit to TAXISnet a declaration of loss of rent (Covid declaration).
*The amount of the tax deduction that the owner will earn will be able to be deducted from the following categories of his tax debts:
a) income tax, special solidarity contribution, business tax and luxury living tax which were confirmed together in this year’s statement ,
b) ENFIA of 2020,
c) VAT of the third quarter of 2020, if it is entrepreneur or self-employed person with an individual business and keeps aplographic books,
d) VAT of one or more of the months of August, September, October, November, December 2020 and a or more than the months of 2021, as long as he is an entrepreneur or self-employed person with a sole proprietorship and keeps double-entry books.
Because it is unknown when the liquidation will take place and the offsetting of refunds to which landlords are entitled for the following months of compulsory or voluntary rent reductions, it is advisable that the beneficiaries of significant amounts of such discounts do not rush to pay off their income tax and ENFIA tax liabilities prematurely, in order for their subsequent refunds to be deducted from the next monthly installments.
