ATHENS – Buried under increasing taxes and governmental obligations, thousands of self-employed professionals in Greece have given up on their country and moved to Cyprus where they can pay five times less and have a better life.
Joining an exodus of Greece’s young and best and brightest who couldn’t find work and fled to other countries, engineers, doctors, businessmen consultant, accountants and others have set up offices in Cyprus, the newspaper Kathimerini said.
Their flight is also bad news to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ hope to lure foreign businesses and investors who would face the same problems that has sent the professionals beating a path to Cyprus: the cost of doing business in Greece, not to mention corruption that is endemic and often forces businesses to be solicited for bribes to get licenses and permits or face huge delays, up to years in some cases.
“There is simply nothing left and this is coming from someone who always happily paid his taxes,” a 50-year-old who is involved in construction told the newspaper.
A lawyer who was not named and was one of those who moved who said based on an income of 180,000 euros ($212,520) in Greece he had to pay 120,400 euros ($142,155) in taxes, fees, social security and other costs but only 29,000 euros ($34,240) in Cyprus.
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RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Source: thenationalherald.com
