The Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) is recommending cutting the taxation level on large investments to 20 percent and the prolonging of the period allowed for offsetting losses with future earnings from 5 years at present to 10 years. Both measures, it claims, would promote economic recovery and systemic stability. SEV also proposed setting up regional commissions to resolve pending tax disputes, which it claims could bring in at least €100m annually tax revenues over the next 5 years.
Eftihios Vasilakis, vice president of SEV’s board and head of the tax affairs commission warned that over-taxation of the most productive and efficient workers in the private sector is a recipe for failure, adding that “instead of introducing investment incentives based on tax honesty and consistency, we raise nominal tax rates, which benefits tax evasion and tax avoidance in an environment of limited liquidity”. He charged that Greece has one of the highest corporate and labor tax rates among all EU and OECD states, and recommended expanding the use of e-transactions and e-billing to promote competitiveness and tax revenues.
A related survey conducted by the Athens Economic University predicted that an e-transactions based system would lead to an 80 percent drop in the number of false invoices issued.
