You are viewing post Amendments into the Special Real Estate tax, as foreseen by Law 4446/2016.

As is known, on the basis of Law 3091/2002 (Articles 15-18), a special real estate tax has been established, aiming at preventing real estate acquisitions by offshore companies. In accordance with Article 15 of the aforementioned law, the following entities are exempt from the tax, among others, companies (JSC, LLC, general partnerships, limited partnerships), provided that the shares or shares of the starting capital are owned by natural persons who have a taxpayer identification number (TIN) in Greece. The prerequisites for acquiring a TIN number in Greece by shareholders or partners have been added in Article 57, paragraph 1 of Law 3842/2010.

Considering perturbations regarding the aforementioned conditions, in particular with regard to companies based in the European Union, on the basis of Article 102 of the recent Law 4446/2016, a new exception was provided with respect to responsible legal entities. In particular, according to the Law 1004/2017 established in the Circular, legal entities are excluded as well, in cases where the natural persons who own shares or shares of the starting capital of joint-stock companies, limited liability companies, general partnerships, limited partnerships did not acquire a TIN number in Greece up until the tax year, subject to the following conditions:

1. Companies (JSC, LLC, general partnerships, limited liability partnerships) have a registered office in Greece or in another Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area, provided that these countries are not included in non-cooperating states.
2. The abovementioned companies have not acquired real estate until 31^st December 2009.
3. Natural persons, who own shares or shares of the starting capital in the abovementioned companies, have been, during the tax year, tax residents of a Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area, provided that these countries are not included in non-cooperating states and have a taxpayer identification number in that state.
4. Natural persons acquired or will acquire a TIN number in Greece after the tax year and not later than within 1 month after Law 4446/2016 is published in the Government Gazette, that is until 22/12/2016.

In addition, as provided by Law 4446/2016, the abovementioned regulation applies to cases which, when applying the Law 4446/2016 into the Parliament, namely, on 12/12/2016, were pending in the tax administration or before the administrative courts, and also in cases in which the expected implementation of the measures of an administrative or a judicial appeal or treatment, and cases in which the respective acts have been issued but not released to this date. In the latter case, the published acts are modified by an act of the authority that has published them. For tan exemption, a fine of 2,500 euros is charged (Article 54, paragraph 2 part 5 of the Tax Procedures Code) for each year of delay in acquisition of a tax identification number.