The latest years, the changes in Local Authority, the unification of regions in Kallikratian Municipalities and the financial environment that is formed in the country imposes the rational management of the financial resources and the application of objective criteria towards the citizens. Main source of income for the Municipalities remains the collection of Municipal Taxes which are calculated based on the building’s area. Unfortunately, even today, the majority of Municipalities insist on generalizing and equating the charging square meters with those of the construction permit. In other words, the square meters of the Real Estate Tax and not of the Municipal Tax which are calculating in a different way according to a legislation currently in force.
As a result, the charging area of the Municipal Tax on which municipalities are based is initially wrongly estimated is inferior to the real area.
A second and most important reason for the fewer registered charging square meters is the register procedure itself. The register of the square meters takes places with the submission of the construction permit in order for the electrification of the building to proceed. This procedure isn’t able to predict any (mostly legal) future extension of the building because the electrification has already completed and the owner is not obliged to register the additional square meters. Thus, one can easily understand that small reconstructed buildings that doubled or tripled in area are not taken into consideration in order to readjust the Municipal Tax as they already have power supply.
Moreover, significant differentiations in registered square meters of use can be noted, either due to arbitrary additions and variations from the initial construction permit or due to the electrification of outbuildings or individual buildings used in the main residence but are not registered in electrification.
Apart from all mentioned above, it is remarkable that there are also important issues to be faced like registered constructions with zero area, the existence of electrified real buildings with no power supply, a big number of free constructions etc. Statistically, for the whole country, the zero registered areas and the exceptions from taxes exceed the 20% of the total and arbitrary constructions is the 30% of the total.
These variations is evident that can lead to an impressive increase of income even if they will be combined with decrease in charging unit of the taxes, thus applying a fair and objective policy towards the citizens.
All mentioned above have been justified and are valid not on a theoretical basis but in implemented projects with specific methodology in Municipalities of Greece. Map International offer complete solutions for the accurate calculation of buildings’ area, essential for Municipal Taxes. The solutions have developed and updated in full in order to cover the increasing needs of Municipal Tax readjustment. Map International has the experience and expertise, the certified services by Municipalities and is the only company to have fully automated all the stages of the procedure offering a complete solution.
As far as results of the implemented projects in Municipalities are concerned, the final calculations proved more than double charging areas which were not charged and led in a fixed, annual increase of the Municipalities’ income.