The middle class has been a big loser lately financial crisis in Greecewhile increase in taxation in the decade after the financial crisis, under austerity programs, it was unevenly distributed, he concludes. GSEE Labor Institute report. And this is because more of the burden of the tax burden has fallen on the shoulders of households whose purchasing power has fallen.

According to a report prepared by Georgia Kaplanoglu, professor at the Department of Economic Sciences at the Hellenic Academy of Sciences, over the decade of the financial crisis (2009-2019) and three memorandums, the increase in the tax burden is incomparable to any other country in the developed world.

This increase of 8.5 percentage points of GDP is the largest among the 38 OECD countries and is almost five times the average for these countries, which is less than 2 percentage points.

And if indirect taxes have been the main source of tax revenue throughout the recent history of our country, then in the decade of the economic crisis their role has increased even more, since the share of indirect taxes in GDP increased from 13.9% in 2009 to 17.5% in 2019.

In aggregate, there is more than 2.5 euros of consumption tax for every euro of personal income tax, and this ratio is rarely directly perceived by taxpayers.

In 2008, prior to the start of the financial crisis in Greece, indirect taxes covered on average about 11.4% of household consumption spending, with this burden rising to 15.2% in 2014 and 15.7% in 2019. resulting in extensive and consistent increases in indirect tax rates. At the same time, the distribution of this burden among households with different living standards has also changed.

The main loser from the economic crisis has been the middle class, as its share of the sharply reduced overall consumption has declined.

In the case of the personal income tax applied in our country, although the tax scale is indeed designed in a progressive manner, its progressiveness is undermined, according to the INE GSEE report, by the fact that not all incomes fall under it. And this is because either they are not declared to the tax authorities, or the law itself provides for their taxation on a separate scale (for example, rents) or at a single independent rate (for example, dividends).

It is clear, of course, that the biggest problem at this level is that it is difficult for the tax authorities to determine real incomes.

Thus, for example, business income is taxed on the first euro regardless of whether the relevant income is correctly declared or not, a small child tax reduction does not apply when income is derived from business activities, and a complex system of presumptions adds several billion euros to the taxable income. material, but does not seem to define high incomes that are not declared and from which significant tax revenues may arise.