Nearly 6.2 million households in Greece declared incomes totaling 75.157 billion euros in 2016, although the tax bureau calculated taxable income at 82.1 billion euros by taking into account so-called “presumptive income” criteria.
Of the 6,194,233 tax statements filed, more than a third (2.5 million) were joint statements filed by couples.
The breakdown in the 82.1 billion euros calculated by the state as “taxable income” includes 6.052 billion derived from the commercial exploitation of real estate; 3.77 billion euros from dividends, interest payments, rights and added values from capital transfers; 4.676 billion euros from business activity; 1.25 billion euros from agricultural activities and 59.4 billion euros in wages and pensions, the “lion’s share” of taxable income.
Based on the tax returns – and without taking into account tax evasion calculation and indexes – 64 percent of households declared annual income of up to 12,000 euros; 38.16 percent up to a paltry 5,000 euros. Tax statements declaring income of up to 30,000 annually covers 91.71 percent of all taxpayers in the country, while only 0.4 percent of taxpayers declared an annual income exceeding 100,000 euros, which in absolute terms is nearly 25,000 households.
The state’s coffers received 8.028 billion euros from income taxes in 2016. The 1.089 million households that declared income above 20,000 euros paid 6.192 billion euros of the total, in other words, 17.6 percent of taxpayers in crisis-swamped Greece pay 77.13 percent of annual income taxes.
Some 26.3 of households in Greece (1.626 million) pay no tax at all, despite the fact that their total incomes reach 7.477 billion euros. Another 17.7 of households (1.094 million) pay an annual income tax of 15 euros. Additionally, 3.251 million households (52.5 percent of the total) pay up to 150 euros a year in income taxes.
Finally, 247,726 households paid income taxes above 6,000 euros on a yearly basis, a mere 4 percent of the total.
