According to Imerisia newspaper, the new collective agreement for private sector employees signed this month does not provide for marriage and child benefits. Up until now, employees received a 10% benefit for being married and 5% for each child. The new labor agreements foresee that all private sector employees receive minimum salary or minimum daily wage and are only eligible to increments if they have worked the required years to receive them by February 14, 2012. Salaries and daily wages are lowered to the minimum levels of 586 euros and 26.18 euros respectively for employees over 25 years old and to 510.95 euros and 22.83 euros for employees under 25 years old. These wages will be eligible for up to a 30% increase for those over 25 years old and 10% for those under 25 years old. The weekly work schedule is set at 40 hours, while Christmas and Easter bonuses are still in effect, unless they are “abolished by a new collective agreement,” as the new contracts state. In the meantime, the Finance Ministry decided to “freeze” income tax returns for about 40,000 recipients, as it was discovered that many of them had overdue debts towards social security funds, such as IKA, OAEE or OGA. As Greece ‘s Eleftheros Typos newspaper reports, many pensioners, private sector and public sector employees who are to receive a tax return, will be double-checked first, resulting in a delay in receiving their income tax returns. Checks will be done on at least 800,000 taxpayers.
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