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.
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