In 2021 Greeks worked 179 out of 365 days of the year to pay taxes

For the 7th consecutive year, KEFiM conducted the “Tax Freedom Day” study in Greece, depicting in a comprehensible way the tax burden of Greek taxpayers.

According to the latest study in 2021 Greeks worked 179 out of 365 days of the year to pay taxes and social contributions. If the deficit for 2021 is taken into account, then the Tax Freedom Day is estimated to be the 10th of August, with 221 working days.

Tax Freedom Day is the first day of the year when Greeks have the opportunity to choose themselves which way they are going to spend their income.

Key Findings:

• In 2021Tax Freedom Day in Greece was the 29^th of June, with 179 out of 365 days of work for the state.
• If we take into account the General Government deficit for 2021, which represents future taxes, then the Tax Freedom Day for 2021 comes 42 days later, on August 10th.
• In the twenty years from 1999 to 2018, 47 more days of work were added, since in 1999 we worked for a total of 139 days, in 2012 174 days, while in 2018 we reached 186 working days to pay taxes and social contributions.
• The total burden of citizens and businesses from taxes and social contributions in 2021 amounts to 71.9 billion and is almost double the amount paid by households to meet their basic needs (44.4 billion in 2019 for food, clothing , housing, household goods, transport and communications).
• Greece records one of the 7 highest charges from taxes and social contributions for 2019, among 23 European countries for which data are available for both indicators.
• Greece records a lower degree of effectiveness of social policy, compared to the average for 2019, being 24th among the 26 European countries for which data are available, while at the same time it has the 8th highest burden of taxes and social contributions (14 days above average) in the 26 countries of the sample, for the same year.

The study was conducted by Constantinos Saravakos, KEFiM’s researcher.