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Welcome, 77 artists, 40 different points of Attica welcomes you by singing Erotokritos an epic romance written at 1713 by Vitsentzos Kornaros

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Does Greece Overtax its Businesses?

As the Greek government negotiates with international lenders for a fresh tax relief program, a new international survey argues that Greece has just opened up a fresh “financial wound” by raising corporate tax rates. Other debt-ridden countries – Portugal, for example – have reduced their corporate tax rates, while Greece’s own neighbors have navigated a more conservative path, keeping their corporate taxes relatively low. According to research conducted by KPMG in 2014, Greece was one of just nine countries that increased corporate tax rates by 6 percentage points (from 20% to 26%). Only three of the other eight surveyed countries surpassed Greece: India (33.99%), Israel (26.50%) and Luxembourg (29.22%). Portugal, where corporate taxes have been reduced from 25% to 23%, has announced further plans to reduce its rate to 19% by 2018. Neighboring Albania, despite the fact that it has recently hiked its tax rate by 5%, still taxes its businesses at a mere 15%. The same tax rates are implemented in Serbia, while Skopje and Bulgaria tax their businesses at 10%, and Turkey at 20%. In 2014, the average corporate tax rate in the EU stands at 19.68%. In the Eurozone alone it stands at 21.34%. Both fall well short of Greece’s percentage.  


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com