Greece has nearly four million taxpayers with overdue debts to the state. But most of the money is owed by a remarkably small group. Just 0.26% of debtors - those owing more than €1 million ($1.2 million) each - account for 74.36% of the country’s total overdue obligations, according to tax-authority data included in α report by the Greek Parliament’s Budget Office.
The figures highlight a persistent problem for Greece’s public finances: The headline stock of tax arrears is enormous, but much of it is either concentrated among a handful of large debtors or considered effectively impossible to collect.
At the end of July, overdue obligations to Greece’s tax administration stood at €109.77 billion. Of that, €30.50 billion, or 27.78%, had been classified as uncollectible. Excluding those debts leaves what officials regard as a more realistic arrears balance of €79.27 billion.
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Tax liabilities account for €52.69 billion of that amount, while fines represent €17.31 billion and other nontax obligations €9.27 billion. Value-added tax is the biggest component of unpaid taxes, at €24.86 billion, followed closely by income taxes. Property-tax arrears total €2.76 billion.
The distribution of debt is heavily skewed. Some 89.77% of debtors owe no more than €10,000, yet together account for only 3.57% of total arrears. At the other end of the spectrum, the tiny group of million-euro-plus debtors dominates the ledger.
That concentration matters for collection efforts. Nearly 92% of actual receipts come from a pool of debts totaling just €26.12 billion, suggesting that much of the nominal mountain of arrears has limited practical value to the government.
The number of people and companies owing overdue taxes stood at 3.99 million in July, down slightly from a year earlier but up by 129,337 in a single month, largely because of new income-tax and VAT liabilities.
Greece faces a similar challenge with social-security contributions. Overdue contributions reached €52.42 billion at the end of June, up €2.13 billion in a year.
