A new German regulation has brought confusion to all retired Greeks who used to previously work in Germany. The regulation regards the retroactive taxation concerning the additional pension from 2005 to 2010, which was passed in 2009, and applies for every single worker at a German company (not a public, state or civic), whether they live in Germany or not. All pensioners have to submit retroactively, their income tax return from 2005 to 2010 and pay retroactively the proportional tax. The Internal Revenue Service of Neubrandenburg is competent for those who live permanently in Greece and provides all necessary information online, as well as the possibility of online income tax return submission.
Nevertheless, the situation is not that easy. Theodoros Gavras, a veteran trade unionist and pensioner now, points out the difficult circumstances that pensioners are going to face. There is a lack of preciseness of letters that are sent to pensioners and it is not clear, if the retroactive taxation concerns their pension as well. In addition, the letter and the documents are written only in German and English and not in Greek, as it used to be. Moreover, there are very restricted time limits of only three months, and no transitional regulation.
Although it is really difficult to say the precise number of retired people who underlie this regulation, Mr. Gavras states that there are about 200,000 pensioners living in Greece. For this reason, he has already submitted his suggestions, in order for the procedure to be improved and accelerated.
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