GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Fotodotis Malamas, Bernitsas Law
Decision 30257 ΕΞ 23-02-2024) provides guidelines on the categories of investments, procedure and supporting documents for a request to certify the completion of the investment, the holding time of the investment and its monitoring, and the interruption or change in the investment after its completion. High net worth individuals must file the relevant appli - cation with the competent tax authority no later than March 31st, and must file the supporting documents no later than May 31st of the relevant tax year, as defined on a case-by-case basis; the tax authorities must approve or reject the application within 60 days. The special regime terminates after 15 tax years and cannot be extended further. High net worth individuals who meet the above condi - tions enjoy the following tax benefits: • non-Greek-sourced income is tax-exempt and not reported; • an annual flat tax liability of EUR100,000 is intro - duced for non-Greek-sourced income – this benefit is extended to close relatives of high net worth individuals with the payment of an additional annual tax of EUR20,000 per person; • assets outside Greece are not subject to gift or inheritance tax; and • no justification is required for funds remitted to Greece. High net worth individuals must pay the annual tax within 30 days of the date of approval. Employees and freelancers The second tax regime targets employees and free - lancers, who are the most productive sectors of soci - ety and comprise most of the workforce that relocated from Greece to other countries over the last few years. Individuals wishing to transfer their tax residence to Greece may benefit from reduced income tax if the following criteria are met cumulatively: • they have not been Greek tax residents for the last five out of six years;
• they are tax residents in an EU/EEA jurisdiction or a jurisdiction with which Greece has signed an administrative co-operation agreement; • they will be employed by a Greek legal entity or the Greek permanent establishment of a non-Greek legal entity (unless they are self-employed); and • they make a declaration that they will reside in Greece for at least two years. The new tax regime applies to employees, execu - tives (with an employment relationship), freelancers or entrepreneurs who will carry out individual business activities in Greece. It should be noted that only newly employed individu - als are eligible to benefit from the new tax regime. Eligible individuals may benefit from the new tax regime for a period of up to seven years from 1 Janu - ary 2021 and will receive a 50% tax break on their Greek-sourced income, applicable to income tax, solidarity contributions, deemed income from hous - ing (only for main residences) and private cars. To register, applicants must include the jurisdiction of their tax residence in the application, and the Greek tax authorities will report the transfer of their tax resi - dence to this jurisdiction. Should the employment or the commencement of business activity take place up to and including July 2nd, the application for inclusion in the provisions of Article 5C must be submitted no later than the end of that year. Following its acceptance by the tax authority, the taxpayer will be considered as Greek tax-resident from that year onwards. However, if the taxpayer submits the application within the year after the employment or the commencement of business activity, they will be considered as Greek tax-resident from that year onwards and not from the year of their employment or the commencement of their business activity. Should the employment or commencement of business activity take place after July 2nd of the respective year, the application for inclusion in the provisions of Article 5C may be submitted by the end of the following year and the taxpayer will be consid - ered as Greek tax-resident from that following year.
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