Figures released this week by the largest industrial and employers’ federation shows that the country’s crisis-swamped and tax-battered middle classes pay one in two euros collected by the state.
The monthly bulletin by the Hellenic Federation of Employers (SEV), based on figures collected by the national statistical authority (EL.STAT), point to a systematic over-taxation during the three bailout memorandums signed and implemented since 2010, with the income-pegged “middle classes” today providing 51 percent of the revenues collected by the state – compared to 39.3 percent before the economic crisis began in late 2009.
At the same time, the higher-income classes reportedly shrunk over the same period, both in terms of numbers and reported income, whereby the figure today stands at 38.1 percent, down from 50 percent before the crisis.
According to the report, even higher tax rates were enacted in 2016, whereas a high tax-free ceiling left annual reported incomes below 10,000 euros untouched – a threshold whereby large segments of self-employed professionals – from physicians to engineers to craftsmen – to actively tried to hide income.
