The uniform real estate ownership tax (ENFIA) processed results for 2014 based on E9 real estate taxes lodged by taxpayers. The Finance Ministry’s online tax portal, TAXISnet, began to issue the first pay notices on Friday and more of these will continue to be posted throughout the day today. The ENFIA pay notices for home owners are payable in five instalments – the first is due on August 29. The government is, however, examining the possibility of adding more instalments – possibly seven – to ensure that as many taxpayers as possible pay the levy.

The first of ENFIA’s  five payable instalments is due by the end of August and needs to be settled even though no printed notification for money owed will be sent to the taxpayers. Instead, property owners have the onus of logging into TAXISnet with their special code on www.gsis.gr and printing the result statement of total tax owed and the instalment dates in which it needs to be paid either at commercial banks or the Post Office.

ENFIA is replacing the previous Property Tax (FAP) and the tax imposed via electricity bills and, being its first year of implementation, there is already some confusion in the way submissions were completed.

Thousands of households are trying to make sense of the instructions by downloading two or three statements depending on how many family members own the property as one submission per family member is required with taxes shared out in the cases of collective ownership.

In a number of cases, the taxes are heftier than they should be due to incorrect submissions. Furthermore, around one million home owners will pay more tax this year. These are owners who had unlicensed/illegal properties until 2013 that have now been legalized or had properties where the power was disconnected.

The coalition government and the troika are aiming for 82% payment of the tax imposed that would result in 2.65 billion euros for the state, however it appears unlikely that most of the owners will pay up on time in light of the fact that expired debts have increased by one billion euros and that income tax is also due.

The government is considering easing the ENFIA taxes in next year’s package of tax cuts provided there is no fiscal gap in next year’s budget and that Greece’s international consents to this.