The Greek government’s financial officers have an uphill struggle ahead of them, as it must ensure that public revenue will be at least 30.37 billion euros, in order to avoid implementing the contingency mechanism for slashing expenses.

A report in Ta Nea shows that the budget execution is on track, as after the first five months of 2016, the revenue so far is 18.40 billion euros, which is about 871 million euros above targets.

As such, the next few months will be critical, as hundreds of thousands of taxpayers will be called upon to pay higher income and real estate taxes, on top of other tax hikes that will gradually come into effect (such as the new, 10% tax on subscription television services).

Indicative of the concern within the government is the fact that while revenue was above the set target, during the first four months of the year, a total of 4.3 billion euros worth of new outstanding tax debts were generated.