Cyprus Property Tax – only the minister currently knows where things stand

The Cyprus Mail published two articles on 6 and 7 January.  Having read them both here is a brief summary.

With everything that has been said  both in and out of  the Cyprus Government in the last few days about what this new Cyprus Property Tax will be or will not be, all of this means absolutely nothing because, strangely, it was announced by Cyprus Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis without, it seems, any research or preparation work having been done by the Officials in the Finance Ministry who said quite clearly yesterday that “the proposed changes to the property law are a political matter at the moment.” Furthermore the Ministry admitted “its application requires land and asset valuation surveys to be completed across the entire island.”

The change in the valuation of real estate is a complex procedure, which according to one deputy took 15 years to complete the last time it was undertaken in 1980.

The Cyprus Mail wrote “All this confusion and bickering was caused by the government failing to do its homework and thinking the idea through. Is the Government now expecting the Land Surveys Department to complete the task in a few months? It did not even consider who would have to pay the real estate tax. Initially we heard it would be people whose property holdings were in excess of €300,000 and then Stavrakis said it would be those whose holdings were in excess of €1 million.”

Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis, the minister who is currently trying to push through some small changes of property registration procedures which are intended to fill the gap for a full reform the Cyprus title deed debacle, against the opinion of The Cyprus Bar Association, is reported to have said “such misinformation raises concerns in the [property] market and reduces confidence.”

The Cyprus Mail wrote in an article published today, 7 January, that “This is what happens when a policy decision is not properly prepared and thought out. The government has been improvising this policy relative to the daily political criticism leveled against it, and exhibiting an unbelievably slapdash approach.” 

 

“The professional approach, would have been to work out everything in advance – the tax threshold, the amount of money that would be raised, the time needed for the new evaluations, the date the measure would be put into force and percentage of the population that would be affected. Only then would the confusion, misinformation and scare-mongering have been avoided.”

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