La riforma fiscale verrà approvata in parlamento entro marzo...
UPDATE 2-Greece aims for tax reform by March -finmin
Fri Dec 18, 2009 6:47am EST
* Tax reform key in shoring up public finances
* No more 2010 prefunding in 2009
(Adds minister quotes, details)
By Lefteris Papadimas and George Georgiopoulos
ATHENS, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Greece wants to enact tax reform by next March to boost budget revenues and convince creditors it is serious about restoring fiscal health, its finance minister said on Friday.
Hit with two rating downgrades in a week and fearing a third from Moody's, the euro zone's weakest member has seen its borrowing costs shoot higher on worries over its capacity to service a debt load that will top 300 billion euros next year.
"We must convince (markets) that Greece is walking a different path," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told a news conference.
"Tax reform will be key in shoring up public finances," he said, adding that he expects the reform to begin yielding results in 2011.
Papaconstantinou has been touring European capitals telling his counterparts and investors that the socialist government will reduce this year's 12.7 percent budget hole to 8.7 percent of GDP next year.
The tax reform will include a capital gains tax, higher tax rates on large incomes and property holdings, and a uniform progressive tax scale for all sources of income.
"The big bet of our tax reform is the broadening of the tax base," Papaconstantinou said.
He said Greece had the highest percentage of non-captured value added tax (VAT) revenues in the European Union and widespread tax avoidance.
To highlight this point, he said 85 percent of individual income tax filings reported incomes of less than 30,000 euros, with only 3,000 reporting incomes above 200,000 euros.
More than 5 million Greeks report annual incomes below 12,000 euros annually, he said.
Fitch and Standard & Poor's have cut Greece's sovereign ratings to BBB+, the lowest in the euro zone.
Yield spreads of 10-year Greek government paper over bunds have widened to 270 basis points, up 10 bps on the day.
The minister said Greece's EU partners were waiting to see it implement plans to improve its fiscal situation, repeating his line that the downgrades largely reflected the country's credibility deficit.
Asked about the likelihood of a further downgrade by Moody's, Papaconstantinou said: "We have talked with Moody's, we have no information (on a possible downgrade). Moody's will take its decisions in the coming weeks."
A senior finance ministry official said later on Tuesday that Greece had no plans to further prefund its 2010 borrowing needs this year