Greece continues its rise in World Bank Doing Business Report rankings

The latest edition of the annual World Bank Doing Business Report shows Greece continuing its rise up the global rankings, up four places from 65th to 61st. The country’s tax environment is not so positive, however, with the country slipping from 41st place to 59th in the Paying Taxes survey.

The latest report, Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency, examines the compliance burden on entrepreneurs in 189 jurisdictions worldwide. Russell Bedford member firms have contributed to each of the report’s Paying Taxes surveys since 2009, contributing data on tax regulation, recent reforms, and the real costs of tax compliance. Responding to criticism of its methodology in recent years, the 2015 edition reflects a number of changes, no longer ranking countries’ performance solely on their aggregate scores in various categories, but also in terms of their ‘distance to frontier’, reflecting each country’s progress in moving towards accepted norms of international best practice. Here too Greece has improved its overall performance, moving 1.71 percentage points closer to the ‘frontier’.

The country’s weaker performance in terms of the tax compliance burden, however, may be attributable to recent tax increases which, despite its having been held at 44 per cent for the past two years, have now seen the total tax take increase to 49.9 per cent.

Stavros Papantonis, managing partner of Russell Bedford member firm Action Auditing, Athens, commented: “Economic austerity continues to drive the wider reform of the economic environment as a whole. But it is worrying that the need to generate tax revenue has resulted in such an adverse outcome for the country’s fiscal environment. Genuine economic growth will not be possible until this changes, and we will continue to make the case for a more favourable tax environment.”

ENDS

Note to Editors

For more information about the World Bank’s Doing Business reports, please visit www.doingbusiness.org

About Russell Bedford International

Established in 1983, Russell Bedford International is a global network of independent firms of accountants, auditors, tax advisers and business consultants. Ranked amongst the world’s leading accounting and audit networks, Russell Bedford is represented by some 600 partners, 5000 staff and 290 offices in more than 100 countries in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Russell Bedford International is a member of the IFAC Forum of Firms and a member of EGIAN, the European Group of International Accounting Networks and Associations.

Contacts:

Kempton Bedell-Harper
Russell Bedford International
T: +44 20 7410 0339
E: info@russellbedford.com
W: www.russellbedford.com

Stavros Papantonis
Action Auditing S.A.
T: +30 210 7217915
E: spapantonis@russellbedford.gr
W: www.russellbedford.gr

This release was published on openPR.