A last-minute amendment attached to a draft bill that includes mostly tax hikes slashes the tax-free ceiling for annual income earned by unmarried taxpayers and couples without children, as well as one-child families.
The amendment was slipped into the draft bill just before midnight on Friday evening, with debate expected over the weekend on the crucial draft bill and another piece of legislation aimed to reduce social security expenditures by the Greek state. The two draft bills, worth a total of 5.4 billion euros in increased taxes and pension cuts, essentially aim to fulfill the leftist Greek government’s memorandum-mandated commitments to institutional creditors, although lenders have not formally signed off on the legislation. The longer-term target is a 3.5-percent primary budget surplus, as a percentage of GDP, in 2018.
In terms of the small business tax rate, a figure of 29 percent is foreseen for profits of companies with profits of up to 50K a year, up from 26 percent.
While very few companies in Greece now post profits of more than 50,000 euros per year, the tax rate for profits above that figure will be set at 33 percent.
