Greece’s tax authority is launching a massive effort to identify and separate billions in uncollectible "bad debt" from its books in order to focus collection efforts, while also freezing the interest rate on all overdue tax debts for two years to provide relief to taxpayers.
The Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) will begin a comprehensive "clean-up" of its €110.8 billion in total tax debt, of which at least €26.3 billion is already classified as uncollectible.
Officials emphasized that classifying a debt as uncollectible is not a form of forgiveness.
The debt's statute of limitations is suspended for 10 years, and debtors will have their bank accounts frozen and be unable to receive tax clearance certificates.
In a related move to ease financial pressure, Minister Kostas Pierrakakis announced a two-year freeze on the interest rate for overdue tax debts at 8.76%.
The measure is expected to benefit over four million taxpayers with outstanding debts.