Taxes eat up half of firms’ annual profits

Greek enterprises will have to pay taxes totaling more than 4.5 billion euros by the end of the year.

They have been sent corporate tax notices adding up to 4 billion euros, on top of which comes the Single Property Tax (ENFIA) – another 500 million euros that is payable from September to January in five installments. Furthermore, the increase in the social security contributions of employers means they will have to pay a sum of more than 170 million to the funds.

A company with earnings of 100,000 euros will see 29,000 euros automatically go toward corporate tax (which has a 29 percent rate). It will also have to pay the professional levy, that amounts to 1,000 euros per year per company. Therefore, it will be left with 70,000.

Once the dividend tax is deducted, the earnings sum drops to 59,500 euros, and the solidarity levy will shave another 3,891 euros off, bringing the sum to 55,609 euros and the final deductions rate to 44.39 percent. If there also are some properties owned by the company, the ENFIA tax will raise the deductions rate by another two or three percentage points, which explains why Greece is not considered an investment destination.