Tax

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank said on April 19 they are joining forces with other international organizations to cooperate on tax issues and develop new tools and standards to halt tax base erosion and evasion.

The Greek government is ‘loading’ the ‘tab’ of the measures on low income earners, in an effort to strike a deal with its creditors before Orthodox Easter. Greeks with a monthly salary between 650 and 2,000 Euros will shoulder the taxation and social security reforms, with employees expected to see an immediate impact on their wages in May, if the bill is passed after Easter.

The Finance Ministry has decided to abolish the levy of 5 cents per entry in games of chance organized by Greek betting firm OPAP.

Instead of the controversial levy, the new tax bill provides for an increase in the tax on gaming company net revenues from 30 to 35 percent.

The country's 8.5 million taxpayers will have to fork out an extra 1.8 billion euros per year in income tax alone according to the set of new measures the government presented on Tuesday in Parliament. In the next few days another bill will follow concerning taxation on consumption.

Turkey wants uniform tax measures for companies across the financial sector, and the government will announce tax changes within one or two weeks, Finance Minister Naci A?bal said on April 13.

The Israel Tax Authority said on April 11 it was imposing a value added tax on local sales by international Internet-based firms, a change that could affect multinational giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Prior to the new directive, a foreign company's income from sales in Israel would be taxed only if the product was produced locally.     

According to data from the Greek Finance Ministry, Greek households and businesses are unable to pay off overdue taxes to the state. In the first two months of 2016 the situation has deteriorated, a particularly worrisome development as the 2016 tax collection term has not even started. According to the data, the overdue tax payments in only 60 days have increased by 2.7bln Euros.

The pace of growth and development in the Turkish economy and its foreign trade implications over the last decade, coupled with the deepening interconnectedness of markets across the globe and the interdependence of national economies - both those in geographical proximity to each other and those in distant continents - has brought topics related to direct and indirect foreign investment to the

The economic team of the Greek government is expecting the answer of the institutions on whether the new measures proposed are sufficient or even more strict measures would be required.

A great number of Greek companies, 39%, consider transferring their headquarters abroad, almost double compared to last July when capital controls were imposed, according to a survey conducted by Endeavor Greece.