Monday, June 22, 2015

Pensions, VAT, taxes: Tsipras of Greece (finally) found the … – Il Sole 24 Ore

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This article was published June 22, 2015 at 22:04.
The last change is the 22 June 2015 at 23:17.

The positions have moved closer, but not enough to be able to sign an agreement immediately. However, as pointed out several European leaders, for the first time since Athens came concrete proposals and then the parties will continue to work to find an agreement to unblock the last tranche of 7.2 billion financial aid, essential to ensure the Greece’s future in the Eurozone and avert default. Here are the points on which the parties are working in Brussels. It is clear that pensions effort Athens marks a shift from the past negotiations, as well as on taxes. It remains a key point of division: Athens asks a discount on the debt that the EU has no plans to grant. And, given the precedents, the Commission and the IMF want to see if the new numbers presented by Athens are realistic.

Primary Surplus Budget
Until a few months ago creditors They asked Athens to a primary surplus – which does not include interest payments on debt – 3% for this year. The requests now dropped to 1% of GDP and for the next two years, the objective should be the 2 and the 3% of GDP respectively. On this point there is an agreement.

Review of VAT
The institutions aim to reform with two rates of VAT to 13% and 23%. Athens wants to maintain the current three to 6.5%, 13% and 23%, but is available to expand the range of products covered nell’aliquota higher. From the review of VAT the government document greek counts of obtaining 580 million this year and 1.36 billion in 2016. On the other hand Athens proposes not to raise taxes on electricity and medicine but only on certain products. In addition, the government greek would be contrary to the abolition of VAT rates granted on the islands.

New spending cuts
The creditors want to cut another 1.8 billion euro in order to reach the minimum level of budget surpluses required. For Athens this is impossible.

Further cuts in pensions and salaries
Athens promises a hold on early retirement in January 2016. The government would Tsipras also agreed to impose an increase of 3.9% pension contributions, a measure that would yield 350 million this year and 800 million in 2016. In total intervention on pensions would be worth 0.4% of GDP this year and 1% in 2016, a marked improvement over the last positions Athens, that pension would not yield anything.

New taxes on businesses and high income brackets
To increase revenue Athens offers a special 12% tax the firms making an annual profit of more than 500 thousand euro and a “solidarity tax” for those earning more than 30 thousand euro per year. There will also be increasing the corporate tax (the tax on business income) from 26 to 29 per cent from 2016. The goal in Athens is to move the tax burden from employees and retirees to the rich and businesses.

Discount on debt
The premier Tsipras pointed to a debt restructuring greek. But his Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis, said that for now there will be an agreement on a cut debt. European leaders can put on the table a lengthening of maturities of bonds in order to shift the burden of repayments to the countries of the euro area in the coming decades. Out of the question, at least for now, it is instead the haircut, ie cutting the value of the greek debt, on which instead Tsipras and his finance minister pointed Varoufakis.



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