The new real estate tax bill has caused huge controversy amongst the parties of the opposition, with ANEL officially submitting an objection on grounds that it is unconstitutional. The motion which was rejected was supported by SYRIZA, DIMAR, KKE as well as the independent MPs, including constitutional legal expert Andreas Loverdos.
The president of ANEL Pavlos Kammenos asserted that the coalition government is “executing the Greek people” and that “with this excessive taxation all you will achieve is to turn the country into a desert”. ANEL’s Chrysoula Giatagana explained that the across-the-board taxation imposed conflicts with the constitutional provision of proportional taxation.
SYRIZA’s MP Kontonis stressed that the tax bill essentially establishes the controversial DEI-collected temporary emergency tax, which had been found to be unconstitutional. Mr. Kontonis hinted that the bill includes tax breaks for huge property owners. Panagiotis Lafazanis noted that the bill “subverts Democracy” and “aims to snatch the real estate property”. The Communist Party, DIMAR and the independent MPs also supported ANEL’s claim, posing a series of conflicts with constitutional articles, amongst which is the provision that taxpayer’s assets must be taxed in total, rather individually.
New Democracy’s Manolis Kefalogiannis claimed that the opposition’s arguments are trivial and that the Parliamentary regulation on matters of constitutionality is being abused. The Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras stated that the bill’s intention is to make taxation of real estate fairer. New Democracy MP Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who is also a constitutional legal expert, pointed out that there are a number of potential issues with bill. Nevertheless, New Democracy and PASOK voted against the motion.
