What is the Common Reporting Standard (CRS)? Over the past few years, governments and organisations all over the world have been promoting the global tax transparency agenda to minimize tax evasion. In this context, and in response to the request of the Group of Twenty (G20), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued the CRS

No change is expected to the heavy bill of the Single Property Tax (ENFIA) which Greece’s leftist-led government is imposing for a third consecutive year despite pre-election promises to abolish it. After the submission and processing of 6.1 million income tax declarations, the Independent Authority for Public Revenue has started uploading the ENFIA notices for

Taxpayers will be able to pay their dues to the state at banks counters without getting charged a fee until late August. The state had decided to pass on to taxpayers the commission banks used to charge it for tax payments, but taxpayers will be spared the 1.10-1.50-euro charge over the summer. According to sources,

Spending on rent, mortgage payments and utility bills will not count toward the sum of card or e-banking payments taxpayers have to reach to be eligible for a tax discount of 1,900-2,100 euros per year, according to Finance Ministry officials. The same officials add that the ministerial decision to be issued soon (pending the agreement

The payment of utility bills using credit or debit cards will also count toward the tax discount for electronic transactions, according to sources, as the state appears unable to distinguish such payments from spending on goods and other services. Although the Finance Ministry originally wanted to exclude the payment of water, electricity and telephone bills

The Finance Ministry is planning to allow the concession of properties to the state for the payment of inheritance tax and other obligations to the state, while it appears the government will have to postpone the return of the capital gains tax on properties for another year. According to comments by Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon

The government will likely have to brace for a drop in transactions, in declared incomes and therefore in public revenues as a result of increases in indirect taxation and in salary and pension deductions for taxes and social security contributions. There are plenty of warning signs already suggesting that 2017 will be tough on revenues,

The World Bank – and not the International Monetary Fund – is bringing back to the negotiating table with the country’s creditors the reduction of the income tax-free threshold to 5,000 euros per year in the context of welfare benefit restructuring. Aiming to save 0.5 percent of Greek gross domestic product from total spending on

The country’s tax administration is planning a new, much stricter fines system for businesses and the self-employed, given that the fines currently incurred by those who do not issue receipts amount to little more than a slap on the wrist, as the Finance Ministry’s inspectors realized during inspections conducted mainly this summer at tourism destinations.

Taxpayers will have to declare income from abroad, holdings in foreign companies and property assets and capital in other countries in the online asset register (“Periousiologio”) that the General Secretariat for Public Revenue will introduce in 2017, which will also include all taxpayer data stored by the tax authorities. According to a top Finance Ministry