Taxation in Greece

The government is abolishing the Financial Crime Squad (SDOE) and the Labor Inspection Unit (SEPE) as separate entities in a bid to relieve their officials from political attachments and streamline the state sector, Deputy Minister for Tax Policy Apostolos Vesyropoulos said on Thursday.

The government is abolishing the Financial Crime Squad (SDOE) and the Labor Inspection Unit as separate entities in a bid to relieve their officials from political attachments and streamline the state sector, Deputy Minister for Tax Policy Apostolos Vesyropoulos said on Thursday.

The French-Greek Chamber of Commerce and Industry is holding an event on Thursday at the French Institute of Greece (31 Sina, Athens) titled "Proposals for a Fair and Effective Tax Policy for Enterprises."
The keynote speaker will be the new head of Grant Thornton in Greece, Nikos Karamouzis, while corporate tax experts will offer their insight.

The Finance Ministry is considering the reduction of the maximum level of permitted cash transactions, as efforts to contain tax evasion continue.

The state has shown a fragmentary approach and a lack of determination toward combating corruption in Greece, according to a report by the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV).

Properties are being sold at just a fraction of their "objective value" (the property price used for tax purposes), according to sale contracts uploaded on the Finance Ministry's online platform gsis.gr.

The government has practically admitted its inability to calculate the taxable value of farmland by extending its exemption from the supplementary property tax for another two years, according to a new tax bill tabled in Parliament on Friday.

The divergence between so-called "objective values," or property rates used for tax purposes and actual market prices, is as high as 70 percent in some cases, according to recent transaction data. It is a difference that continues to burden owners, buyers and sellers alike, even though objective values were adjusted downward a year ago.

Apartment owners in central Athens and other parts of the Greek capital are ready to make the most of the increase in demand - mainly from foreign visitors - given that most people seeking a new home want to rent rather than buy.

The Single Property Tax (ENFIA) is to undergo significant changes from 2017 after the Council of State ruled that the method used to calculate the tax for four areas in the country was illegal on the grounds that it did not take into account their special features in the assessment of their objective values (property rates used for tax purposes).