



The European Commission released a report on Friday which details the losses incurred by the European Union member states due to VAT tax evasion from 2009-2013 and sheds light on the extent of the problem in Greece.

During these five years, the Greek State lost a total of 37.044 billion euros from VAT tax evasion.

The average VAT Gap rate, which denotes the rate of the difference between the VAT revenues that should have been collected based on “legislation and ancillary regulations” and the country’s actual VAT revenues show that Greece had the fourth highest gap rate in the EU with a 34% evasion rate. The average of the 26 European Union countries stands at 15.2% in 2013.

“The VAT Gap is an indicator of the effectiveness of VAT enforcement and compliance measures, as it provides an estimate of revenue loss due to fraud and evasion, tax avoidance, bankruptcies, financial insolvencies as well as miscalculations,” the report reads.

According to the report, the greatest losses were recorded in 2011 when Greece could have collected 24.181 billion euros from VAT but missed out on 9.16 billion of those, which amounts to a 38% rate.



