NEA IONIA, Greece » Ioannis Chatzis is 86 and lives in a tiny, single room, surviving on a pension that is just enough to pay for food and care for his bedridden wife.

But in its latest push to raise cash, the Greek government sent him a new $372 real estate tax bill, incorporated into his October electric statement.

Chatzis says he is being asked to choose between lights and paying for his wife’s medicines, since he cannot afford both on his $720 a month pension.

"This is how we are treated," he said recently, his face a mixture of fury and despair. "I have nothing left to give. I will not be paying it."

Chatzis is far from alone in that vow, and it is not certain that the Greek government will do anything about the tax rebels.

As the first due dates approach on the Greek government’s novel idea of linking electricity to tax payments, a growing resentment is settling over many parts of this country — one that some local officials believe could even shake its political stability.

Already there are pockets of resistance popping up in dozens of areas, including this northern suburb of Athens, where Mayor Iraklis Gotsis has promised to fight the tax bills in court. He has also organized a group of electricians willing to reconnect — illegally — anyone who is cut off. "This thing on top of all the other taxes and salary cuts has made people snap," Gotsis said recently. "It is the drop that made the glass full."

Many Greeks consider the new tax, which makes no exceptions for the unemployed or the elderly and is much higher than any real estate tax they have paid before, to be one more sign of the tough austerity measures they are suffering under as a requirement for European aid. European finance ministers will meet Tuesday to decide whether to release the next $10.6 billion allotment to the Greek government.

In the past, most Greeks paid real estate taxes when they bought, sold or inherited property. They also paid comparatively small yearly taxes to municipalities. Someone in Chatzis’ circumstances might have paid less than $133 a year in total. Now he will have to pay an additional $373 this year and the next.

In September, under pressure to come up with $2.6 billion to close a budget gap, and losing the battle against tax cheats, Greek officials settled on the idea of linking a new real estate tax to bills from the government-owned power company.

The new tax, which they say they will levy again next year, is based on square footage, age of the building and the average value of a neighborhood, and has nothing to do with the taxpayer’s income.

But lately, even the government seems to be having second thoughts about the tax. Last week, the power company announced that it would send out cutoff notices, but that it would hold back on taking any such measures until the government had considered the circumstances of the affected families. Meanwhile, union workers occupied the power company’s billing center, preventing any new bills from going out.

Some Greeks just don’t believe that the government will ever have the nerve to cut power to thousands of homes. They say it will be yet another change of course, as is so often the case here. Deadlines are set and then rescinded. Tough tax laws are put forth and then amnesties are offered.

"I honestly don’t believe they will do this," said Pantelis Ksiridakis, the mayor of a wealthier suburb, who described the policy as a form of blackmail that may work for the rich, but is crushing to the poor. "They are pushing people to the limit with this."

"This is a tax that nobody expected, and they are demanding cash. No structured payments," he added.

In Nea Ionia, Gotsis has offered to have municipal lawyers defend those who cannot, or will not, pay the tax; about 1,000 residents have come forward so far.

Most, he said, fall into the first category. Greece’s creditors, he said, forget that large numbers of Greeks, even if they have evaded taxes at the margins, are not wealthy. About 25 percent of the small stores in Nea Ionia have closed in the last two years, hit hard by the country’s deepening recession and rising unemployment rate.

Not everyone in this suburb is refusing to pay. Some say they will find the money because they believe their country is in trouble. One man, who declined to give his name, said he, too, had lost his business — a snack shop — last year. But he is surviving on the income from a few properties he owns and will pay the new tax.

"We have to help the state," he said. "The tax is unfair. We are not the first ones who should be paying. The ones who have Swiss bank accounts should be paying. But that is still how things are here."

© 2011 The New York Times Company