The OECD was the latest international body this week to sound the “warning bells” over the heavy tax rates now imposed on thrice bailed-out Greece, in two separate studies, one on corporate tax rates and the other indications of weakened growth prospects on the part of its member-states.
In terms of Greece, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reminded that the corporate/business tax rate in Greece is still at a “west European” level of 29 percent, with the member-state average is 21.4 percent. Only advanced industrial and economic countries such as France (34.4 percent), Germany (29.8 percent) and Belgium (29.6 percent) have higher rates in the EU.
Conversely, regional EU partners but also business and investment-attraction rivals Bulgaria and Romania feature corporate tax rates of 10 and 16 percent, respectively.
Outside the EU, but next door, Turkey has a rate reaching 19 percent.
Another unenviable “top spot” for Greece is that it recorded the greatest increase in taxes between 2007 and 2017, while over the two-year period of 2016-17, the country was seventh in terms of overall tax increases – worldwide.
A veritable “tax tsunami” was unleashed on the country in 2016 by the Tsipras coalition government in order to meeting creditor-mandated fiscal targets, all part of the third bailout memorandum hatched out in 2015.
