A special committee comprised of the Deputy Minister of Finances Christos Staikouras, the Deputy Minister of Labor Vasilis Kegeroglou, the president of the Council of Economic Advisors Panos Tsakloglou, the PM’s consultant Stavros Papastavrou and PASOK MPs Protopapas and Koutroumanis convened yesterday at the Ministry of Finances to discuss the benefit deriving from the primary surplus.
About 64,000 uniformed officers are set to collect 500 euros each from the primary surplus, with the rest of beneficiaries collecting up to 1,000 euros, depending on their family status. The government has decided to distribute the benefit by crediting the bank accounts of beneficiaries directly; the same way heating oil benefit has been paid out. Beneficiaries who have not registered a bank account may contact the General Secretariat of Information Systems.
Uniformed officers will only be able to apply for the benefit if their gross wages are less than 1,500 euros, although there are considerations of expanding the limit by 40-50 in order to include even more officers. The committee has not yet decided upon the criteria for everyone else to collect the benefit, as it has to find a balance between income and assets, for the remaining 450-475 million euros to be distributed in benefits.
At Thursday’s meeting in the Finance Ministry it was decided that the benefit must be around 500 euros and increase according to family status, but it must not exceed 1,000 euros. Additionally, the government is considering imposing a 7,000 to 10,000 euro income threshold. The committee is debating whether to create specific categories of beneficiaries – like it has done with uniformed officers – in order to vary the criteria and degree of available assistance.
In any case, the income and asset criteria will derive from the 2013 tax returns of the beneficiaries, with the committee considering the exemption of the primary residence from the equation.
