Twenty percent of taxpayers paid 80 pct of taxes in 2015, survey shows

The large divergence in the degree to which tax burdens are distributed among Greeks is revealed in a recent survey conducted by Greek think tank IOBE for the research center diaNEOsis.

According to the survey, which uses data from 2015, 20 percent of taxpayers declared 53 percent of the total income revealed to tax authorities and forked out 80 percent of the overall taxes paid by individuals that year.

The other 80 percent of taxpayers, which in 2015 corresponded to people with incomes up to 19,000 euros, declared 47 percent of the total income and paid 20 percent of the overall taxes submitted by individuals.

The authors of the report explain the above percentages can be partly explained by the differences in average income and the progressivity of tax rates.

However, what seems to turn a small fraction of taxpayers into "beasts of burden" is ...