Doesn’t Greece have rich people?

Greece has extremely few rich people – if the official declarations of income and property are anything to go by.

The numbers from the tax declarations highlight several Greek “peculiarities”: On paper, Greece has hardly got any rich individuals. Only 27,000 taxpayers declare an individual income of more than 100,000 euros, while four out of 10 appear to live on €5,000 a year.

Fewer than 15,000 owners have personal real estate worth more than €1 million, while fewer than 70,000 bank customers have large deposits of more than €100,000.

From some 300,000 legal entities operating in the country, only 10,000 declare taxable profits of more than €150,000, meaning that even fewer (given that corporate income tax and withholding tax must be deducted) are able to distribute earnings over €100,000. On the contrary, 235,000 firms out of approximately 300,000 – or eight out of 10 companies – have either losses or profits below what the minimum wage worker (€10,000 per year) now earns.

What does all this evidence show? Greece must unveil and properly record incomes, assets and profits, for tax policy to be designed with greater fairness.