The profile of the Greek tax-evader: Ernst & Young report

Ernst & Young released an analysis report outlining the profile of the Greek tax-evader. The report, which was based on criteria such as profession, place of residence and family status and presented at an event organised by the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) and Research and Policy Institute “diaNEOsis”, revealed that the profile of a person most likely to commute tax evasion was a professional doctor with a private practice who resided in an urban area in southern Greece with many children. The total tax evasion is estimated to stand at 6-9% of the GDP (11-16 billion per annum). The percentage of undeclared income by freelance professionals was between 57% and 58.6%, while only 0.5-1% of undeclared income came from employees. The agricultural sector also had a high percentage of undeclared income which reached 53%. The analysis adds, however, that the low percentage of tax evasion among employees raises suspicions of collusion and “mutual agreements” between employees and employers so that the workers declare less income and the employee benefits by paying less insurance contributions. Besides doctors, other fields with a high rate of tax evasion are construction, education, accounting and legal services. Single tax payers (7.2%) tax evade the least, while married couples evade declaring income more commensurate to the number of children they have.

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