Around 76,800 people have paid their Immovable Property Tax this year according to official statistics, but the majority of those who have paid their tax appear to be the owners of modest properties.
There is evidence that a property developer has made false Immovable Property Tax declarations to the authorities, which has resulted in his customers receiving IPT notices from the Inland Revenue.
Even though Hasikos claimed that Immovable Property Tax bills would be reduced, the new 2013 valuations will be seen as yet higher indirect taxation in 2015 for 'high density build' concrete palaces.
The law amending the Cyprus Immovable Property Tax Laws for 2014 has now been published in the Cyprus Gazette and it offers a 15 per cent discount for those who pay early.
Over the past few of weeks we have received literally dozens of emails from people who have received unreasonable demands for Immovable Property Tax (IPT) from their developers.
Politis, the Greek language newspaper, has listed the names of thirty two property developers who failed to pay their Immovable Property Tax to the Inland Revenue by the due date of 15th November.
Following complaints from owners of multiple properties that they were not being issued with detailed statements of how their IPT has been calculated, the Cyprus Inland Revenue has acted to resolve the problem.
We have received further reports of property developers in Cyprus continuing to extort money from buyers by using the threat of withholding Title Deeds to elicit payment of highly inflated amounts of Immovable Property Tax.
Just when we thought we had reported all of the Cyprus Immovable Property Tax scams, yet another one rears its ugly head; this time by a well-known Paphos-based developer.
The Immovable Property Tax law based on 1980 values is to most foreigners a very confusing concept which has no parallel in other EU countries. Relying on this confusion, developers ensnare and contain clients in the Title Deed trap.
