Parliament: Criticism of the retroactive taxation of pensioners and LARCO –

The Plenary Session of the Parliament ratified the Act of Legislative Content of 28/01/2022 entitled “Urgent tax, customs and related regulations, urgent provisions to ensure the right to judicial protection”. At the beginning, the MPs of the coalition were in favor, the Movement for Change declared “present”, while SYRIZA, KKE, Hellenic Solution and MERA25 voted against.

Closing the discussion, the Deputy Minister of Finance, Ap. Vesyropoulos, said that the government continues to manage and deal reliably and effectively with the difficulties and emergencies that arise. As he noted, the government does not hesitate to constantly take new support measures, to strengthen and update measures that have already been implemented, in order to maintain social cohesion, so that everyone has the opportunity to participate in the benefits of the development process in the future. Mr. Vesyropoulos stressed that the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis maintains the trust of the society because it has two elements that constitute a comparative advantage, namely reliability and efficiency and, above all, measurable results. “It does not matter the fact that the official opposition is trying to underestimate the second and even permanent reduction of ENFIA, but also the other tax reliefs of our government. What matters is that the citizens see the reduction of taxes and have immediate benefit from it “stressed Mr. Vesyropoulos.

Criticism of the opposition focused on the provision that increases (from 24 to 48) the installments of repayment of debts of pensioners to the tax office (from the declaration of retroactive amounts and pensions of previous years) and the provision for the three-month extension of the special management of LARCO.

SYRIZA’s rapporteur Costas Barkas said he could pass other provisions such as the “exemption from income tax for dangerous work allowances in the form of a flight allowance”, but disagreed with the taxation of already cut retroactive pensions. as with the closure of the LARCO factory.

The spokesperson of the Movement for Change, Tonia Antoniou, asked the Parliament and the HRDH to inform the Parliament about where LARCO is going, as well as the presentation of a comprehensive plan “which will ensure the recovery of the company, but of course the jobs.” “. Regarding the retroactive pensions, he said that the government is asking them to return 25% -55% while they should be taxed at the source with 20%.

KKE spokeswoman Maria Komninaka said that the substance for LARCO is not in the short-term extension of the special liquidation process, but in that “through it you save time to complete the crime”, in the context of the gift of productive public enterprises to individuals. . Regarding the retroactive payments of the retirees, he said that “not only did you give them leftovers and cuts”, and “instead of giving them interest after the long delay […] you dare to take back more than half by over-taxing them.

The speaker of the Hellenic Solution, Vassilis Viliardos, expressed his opposition to the payment of taxes for the retroactive pensions, while for LARCO he expressed the assessment that any investors who asked for the dismissal of the employees and to accept acceptable environmental arbitrariness as well as a low “which will burden all of us”.

The speaker of MERA25, Fotini Bakadima reiterated her party’s request for the cancellation of the confirmed debts of the pensioners for their retroactive payments, while for LARCO she said that we are talking about a “small extension of the previously announced sale, the sale of the emblematic LARCO”.

Commenting on the criticism of the opposition, the rapporteur of ND, Giannis Kefalogiannis said that the government doubled the number of installments from 24 to 48, while, in order to provide sufficient time for retirees to include their debts in the aforementioned regulation, it was provided that the payment of Retroactive pension tax is not necessary until January 31, 2022, but is extended until February 15, 2022. He recalled that the government has shown in practice that it respects the court for the eleven months of June 2015 – May 2016 and for those retirees who had not filed a lawsuit before the administrative courts.

As for the LARCO case, he said that if we want to be fundamentally serious towards the company’s employees and their families, we must tell some truths: First, that ND received from SYRIZA a LARCO with a negative net position of 400 million. euros, with obsolete equipment, with debts to PPC at 365 million euros, while the country was also called to repay illegal state aid amounting to 136 million euros. With these data, the only solution for the future of the company was to find a private investor, a solution that, as he said, had been accepted in writing by the then Minister of Finance of the SYRIZA government. Regarding the current investor search process, he said that next week the State will present the final draft contract to the investors in order for them to submit binding offers within thirty days. He also said that for the employees there will be severance pay for all employees at a total cost of 20 million euros, inclusion in pre-retirement scheme for employees over 55 years old, and for staff who will not be used by the new property will be included in “Bridge” work programs.

It is noted that with an overwhelming majority (yes: ND, SYRIZA Movement for Change and Hellenic Solution, present KKE and during MERA25) an amendment was accepted for the support of companies affected by the pandemic and for the construction of Rapid Patrol Guided Missiles, War The amendment to suspend sanctions on LARCO arbitrarily and to extend the obligation to pay an environmental fee to old, polluting vehicles (Euro-5b) was accepted by the coalition but voted against by the opposition as a whole.

Source: AMPE