The Greek Fiscal Environment: Opportunity or Disaster?

A lot of studies internationally has shown the important effect of the fiscal system on the effort to attract foreign investments. This is why -via this article- we will give the main aspects of the Greek fiscal system and its parameters as far as the capital and personal companies are concerned.

First of all, we should highlight that this system is really fickle. In other words, many changes in the tax laws take place and as a result the tax legislation becomes confusing. Moreover, this legislation is not codified and this is why many times you cannot find what is prescribed by the law in relation with a special matter. So, the first difficulties of the fiscal system derive directly from the structure of the tax legislation.

In addition, studying the fiscal rates we should underline that they are a little bit high after the current legislation amendment. To be more specific, the corporate income tax is 29% for all capital companies. On this tax rate we add the tax rate of 10% imposed on the dividends distributed to the shareholders. On the other hand, in regards to the taxation on personal companies, the rate of 26% is imposed for profits up to 50,000.00 euro while the rate of 33% is imposed for profits above the mentioned limit. Consequently, we could say that these tax rates are higher than the tax rate in Cyprus while they are lower that the tax rate in other European countries.

Last but not least, it should be mentioned that the last years Greece has made a lot of changes in the process of establishing a company and it could be said that it is significantly short the time needed to set up a company. Furthermore, the expanded network of the agreements for the avoidance of double taxation makes Greece an interesting place for foreign inventors to start up their business.   

To sum up, despite of the Greek financial crisis we should admit that Greece offers truly attractive solutions for foreign companies and favors the foreign investments to its territory. If you would like more information about this solutions, please do not hesitate to come in contact with Advance Consultants S.A. and its specialized advisors.