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It's at 25%.
Now, assume that if Greece were like every other European country, it only had 20% tax evasion.
Well, let's look at its tax collection. It's at 140 billion. 5% of that is 7 billion. That's not enough to cut into a 350 billion deficit. We've only accounted for 2% of a 11-15% yearly budget deficit.
Taxes should be reformed in Greece BECAUSE they are unfair to those who pay. But from a macro perspective outside Greece, here are the numbers reported by Eurostat for the last decade:
Greece collects between 40-43% of its GDP annually. The EU collects 44%.
In Greece, 8% of GDP is collected as income tax revenue. 12% social contributions. 5% corporate. 16% VAT and sales tax.
The actual rate of tax collection in Greece is on par with tax collection in Europe. In fact, I would argue that in Greece, tax collection actually exceeds that of most of Europe when you take into account two factors: Shipping and Tourism. Those two industries account for almost 40% of Greek GDP. Tourism is cash heavy, and outside of using credit cards, I'd imagine its an industry with high evasion. Shipping revenues and profits are untaxed precisely because the ships can register in any port, under any flag. The ship owners pay a tonnage tax for the weight of ships only. So here with shipping we account for 20% of the nation's GDP, but for hardly any of the country's taxes. This literally means that when you back out shipping, the GDP subject to tax is smaller, and thus the % of tax to GDP collected is much higher.
To roll back high tax evasion of high taxes would be a very good thing for Greece, but not a solution. After all, high tax evasion of high taxes already yields more revenue than the low tax evasion of low taxes. In the USA, we have hedge fund managers who pay 15% on earnings.
Here's an article about it.
The thing is, you have Junker as a titular head of the EU, an ex-head of Luxembourg which has long batted back EU attempts for some transparency into its "tax paradise" arrangements with some of the worst scofflaws in Europe.
Total revenues in Greece have been less than 40% GDP (but less than that as I mentioned here) an approximately 5% lower number than the Eurozone average that jibes with the 15 billion Euro evasion the Economist article mentions, and I suppose that Greece is on a par with other EU countries in (legal) tax avoidance?
Shipping offers around 7% GDP (here in Greek) and tourism another 15%... Tourism I wouldn't think has a much higher rate of tax avoidance than other industries. Shipping companies and tycoons are almost religiously tax-exempt, not even the income they make from shipping activities is taxed (this again is in Greek, and accurate AFAICT. It lists more than 55 special provisions in the tax code for shipping companies and their shareholders/owners. Quite shocking) The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
This is where I was pulling the tax revenue numbers from, but it also breaks down tax collections by type (income, corporate, etc.)
Interesting about shipping, since I read a number of articles recently that put it at 18% of Greek GDP. I wonder, could this be related to the spectacular deviations in shipping costs? During much of the decade until 2008, Greek shippers were charging upwards of $110,000 a day per ship. By 2009, the rates for shipping dropped to $5,000, so low in fact that companies saved money by refusing contracts, drydocking ships, laying off workers, etc. Many of these companies showed income only from scrapping older ships for metal. I wonder where one might find a year-over-year comparison of the shipping industry.
Some numbers on tourism and shipping (2003-2008) here. In Greek. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
And people wonder why Greeks are happy-go-lucky.
With a quick look at the official site of Hellenic Statistics I couldn't find data on Greek GDP composition braking down to shipping or tourism. That's why figures quoted by various sources differ significantly. For example, a recent paper by National Bank of Greece quotes shipping as 6.9% of GDP. "Eurozone leaders have turned a €50bn Greek solvency problem into a €1,000bn existential crisis for the European Union." David Miliband
I am quite skeptical on the numbers circulating on shipping and tourism contribution to Greek GDP. These number are numbers by their respective lobbies so they tend to be inflated (for example, by including a broad area of services to "tourism").
"[W]hen you add up the growth prognosis of all companies of a sector strangely the market is often a lot bigger than it should be..."
- crankykarsten If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
I'd really like to know about the Greek banks and the fact they were started by shipping magnates. What's the relationship between these banks and the shippers who started them. What kind of impact does this have on Greece? It seems to me, should the world economy get going again, the shippers themselves can recapitalize banks in a similar fashion if the old ones collapse, as long as their wealth isn't too closely tied to the banks they created.
But see this (p.6) and you realize that as far as shipping is concerned Greece is an international tax haven... The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake
Wall Street loves stocks with big revenues and muddy stories. Pump and dump.
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