Specifically, 5 days before the deadline for tax returns on August 2 and while almost 6.2 of the total 6.6 million tax returns of natural persons have been submitted, the assessed tax from debit returns has reached 3, 95 billion euros. Last year, in the same period, out of the total of 6.6 million tax returns that had been submitted, the total tax assessed was 3.8 billion euros. Given that the last 400,000 remaining returns will be presumptively debited, the final income tax collected on 2023 income will surely exceed 4 billion.
Correspondingly, 74,000 declarations remain to be filed by legal entities, while of the 262,791 declarations that have already been submitted, the tax due has reached 4.6 billion, which is also increased by 300 million euros compared to the total of last year’s period.
This will set the stage for a fourth consecutive year of tax revenue exceeding the targets set by the Budget.
Based on the final Budget execution data, tax revenues reached 29.2 billion euros in the January-June half-year, recording an excess of 1.26 billion euros or 4.5% over the target included in the Budget report 2024.
According to the Ministry of Finance, this over-execution comes from the better performance of the income taxes of natural and legal persons of the previous year which were collected in installments until the end of February 2024 (it is noted that an estimated amount of 647 million euros is counted in the fiscal result of the year 2023 ).
The “net” excess of tax revenues for the first half of the year reached 620 million euros and is due to the excess of indirect taxes (VAT, VAT) by 430 million euros and by 250 million euros from direct taxes and is recorded before income tax collection starts from the beginning of the next month.
Where will the excess come from?
The excess is expected to come mainly from corporate taxes which will yield more in direct taxes than expected based on business results in 2023. A large part of the revenue excess will concern indirect taxes, due to expectations of a new record revenues in tourism expected to exceed 21 billion euros against the 19.5 billion euros recorded in 2023.
In addition, for 2024 there are “certain” additional revenues of 1.2 billion euros due to interventions instituted at the end of the previous year. The first of these interventions is the presumptive way of taxing the incomes of the self-employed, which is expected to bring in additional revenues of 532 million euros. The second intervention is the increased overnight fee in tourist accommodation so that there is income to cover damages from natural disasters. With conservative estimates, the fee increase will bring additional revenues of 650 million euros.
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