Undeclared income and tax evasion remain among the main problems of the Greek economy, with the phenomenon remaining stronger in the sectors dominated by self-employed professionals and freelancers. Despite recent progress, this trend remains considerable, undermining not only state revenue but also the proper operation of the market.<\/p>\n
According to this week\u2019s Bank of Greece report, the volume of the gray economy in Greece ranges between 20.9% and 21.6% of the country\u2019s gross domestic product. This is significantly higher than the European Union average (between 15% and 17%), while tax evasion is mostly identified in the way many freelancers and self-employed are paid: by cash and not declared to the taxman.<\/p>\n
This extensive illegal activity in the economy has multiple consequences, the central bank said. It undermines the credibility of institutions, creates conditions of unfair competition among enterprises and discourages investments, because it is linked with increased uncertainty and reduced transparency.<\/p>\n
The report \u2013 noting the new European fiscal rules \u2013 says the systematic and consistent aim to combat tax evasion is particularly important for the government because it contributes to the creation of sustainable fiscal space without the need for imposing additional tax burdens.<\/p>\n
Such a structural improvement of public finances allows for the adoption of targeted social- and growth-minded policy interventions, and to strengthen the efficiency of economic governance, the BoG noted. The permanent expansive measure got adopted this year because of those reasons, with an emphasis on the reduction of tax burden on middle-income families with children, and young workers, bolstering social cohesion and economic activity.<\/p>\n
The central notes that a complex series of interventions are required, which include expanding the use of digital tools, the interconnection of tax administration databases, tax system simplification, reduction of bureaucracy and of administrative costs for businesses, and more inspections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Undeclared income and tax evasion remain among the main problems of the Greek economy, with the phenomenon remaining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46,1016],"class_list":{"0":"post-382469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-taxation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}