Squeezing the few for revenues

For every 10 euros the tax authorities collect, half comes from 5 percent of taxpayers and the other half from the remaining 95 percent, tax data processed by the Independent Authority for Public Revenue show.

Out of Greece's 8.9 million taxpayers, 6 million pay an average annual income tax of 92 euros per year, while those who declare earnings of more than 100,000 euros pay an average of 65,808 euros to the taxman.

The tax statements of 2018 - concerning 2017 incomes - show that 437,158 taxpayers, accounting for 4.9 percent of the total, declared incomes of 18.31 billion euros (22.77 percent of all incomes) and paid 4.1 billion euros in taxes, or 49.39 percent of all tax revenues. They are the taxpayers who declared incomes over 24,000 euros per annum.

That category of taxpayers is steadily shrinking every year, which is due to overtaxation and the high social...