Draft bill foresees incentives for investors, stock options

Apart from the reduction of the corporate income tax from 28 to 24 percent and the halving of the tax on dividends from 10 to 5 percent, the government's draft tax bill includes a number of other incentives aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship, attracting highly skilled workers in Greece and bolstering investment activity to accelerate growth.

Therefore, beside the changes to tax rates and obliging taxpayers to conduct more online transactions, which have been at the focus of attention, it also contains a series of clauses addressing the investor community.

These include the introduction of separate tax for stock options - which is the right to buying shares in one's employer, a common reward for corporate executives - of 15 percent. Stock options are currnelt taxed as revenues from salaried services based on income tax, often taking the tax up to 45 percent. This...