Direct tax

Greece lowers the percentage of taxes in terms of GDP and converges with the eurozone average, while increasing its dependence on indirect taxes and especially value-added tax.

The improvement is attributed to increased tax revenues (both direct and indirect taxes) due to rising employment along with simultaneous increases in wages and pensions

The government will broaden the tax base and increase the share of direct taxes, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz has said.

"There have been criticisms such as 'too high a tax burden,'" Yılmaz said on Dec. 12 during his speech in the parliamentary talks on the government's 2024 budget.

Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz has said there are strong demands from the labor and employer sectors on taxation and that he supports these demands, pointing to radical changes.

"This is an issue we should work on," Yılmaz said after meeting with representatives of the business world as part of preparations for the Medium-Term Program (MTP) to be announced next month.

While Greece has managed to digitalize much of its bureaucracy, this has not reduced red tape or made it cheaper. Indeed, Greeks pay indirect taxes amounting to hundreds of millions of euros for financial as well as personal transactions, hidden in the form of an administrative fee, known as "paravolo" in Greek.

The Greek government is ‘loading’ the ‘tab’ of the measures on low income earners, in an effort to strike a deal with its creditors before Orthodox Easter. Greeks with a monthly salary between 650 and 2,000 Euros will shoulder the taxation and social security reforms, with employees expected to see an immediate impact on their wages in May, if the bill is passed after Easter.