The omnibus bill containing the prior actions demanded by Greece’s lenders to complete the country’s program review was approved in principle and by majority in the relevant parliamentary committees on Friday.
SYRIZA and the Independent Greeks (ANEL) voted in favour, while all the opposition parties voted against it.
The debate in the committees will now continue on each article and on Saturday the bill will be submitted to the plenum. It is expected to be voted on Sunday afternoon (May 22).
The controversial omnibus bill that was tabled earlier in the week contains a series of indirect tax hikes on a variety of goods and services, which will gradually come into effect by 2018.
According to the General Accounting Office, this series of measures is intended to generate an additional 1.83 billion euros (about 1% of the GDP). The final measure to come into effect, in January 2018, will be the hotel tax.
The list of measures is as follows:
- Raising VAT from 23% to 24% (437 million euros)
- Raising fuel consumption tax by 5% (215 million euros)
- Introducing natural gas consumption tax (302 million euros)
- Raising special tax on beer and alcoholic beverages in the Dodecanese (122 million euros)
- Raising car registration tax based on commercial value and introducing special on second-hand car sales (121 million euros)
- Introducing a “road tax” for vehicles with foreign license places entering the country 13 million euros)
- Raising the special tax on imported coffee (62 million euros)
- Raising special tax on cigarettes, tobacco and electronic cigarettes (142 million euros)
- Introducing special tax on subscription TV services payable by the companies (25 million euros)
- Raising the taxation of betting companies as well as collective investment-portfolios / real estate corporations (95 million euros)
- Introducing an overnight accommodation tax for hotels (94.5 million euros)
Read more here.
