Invest in Greece -- today

At the present time, Invest in Greece could be construed as synonymous to, "taking leave of your senses" and "going bonkers".
From a more hands on perspective, it is simply a bad joke, for employees and investors alike.

It is a bad joke for employees because the total income tax burden has risen to an aggregate of over 45% on average for all Greeks, wages have gone down, and the various extras to pay (social security, etc) costs another 18% and, worse of all, the Greek socialist governments often give in to urges imposing an extra, "retrospective", tax... as last year where a well-fed socialist finance minister imposed an extra 5% tax off the top, just as an afterthought!

All in all, if you are to live and work in Greece, it's best to be an EU, UN, or embassy employee (all are exempt from tax & other Hellenic burdens). Or you could opt for the black labour market, as have 33% of the workforce according to the national statistics org. -- you may make less, but what you get is yours. As an added bonus you are not subject to any bright additional taxation ideas, Greek politicians may come up with...

Investing in Greece: a (bad for the money) joke.

It's not that the country is devoid of any beauty, history, monuments, of natural resources, of beautiful landscape, of beautiful weather, of sunshine or of beautiful women and some good looking men.. and then some.
It is that none of these -- or anything else for that matter -- is available, or propitious to, conducting business. Given applicable legislation, custom, applicable rules and unclear regulations, Greece is clearly not open for business; business is just not how this country works --

• Yes, there is the sun, but getting the license to operate a photovoltaic site meant you had to wait 19 - forever for an license to operate, or pay up an easy 12% of the stated investment value;
• Yes there are 3000 islands, many of which are inhabited and all of which can be beautiful to cruise, but you may be barred by disembarking your cruise-ship passengers for any number of reasons, or any number of disgruntled activists, without prior notice (for example, "PAME", a vociferous group representing about 0.8% of the electorate).
• Yes you may build (or renovate) a house -- but the planning permission may take +38months (actual case in Mykonos) or cost a few thou in permission "acceleration" kick-backs.
• .....

All this stands UNLESS of course, you belong to one of a few dozen families that influence or control the Greek administration-governmental complex or you are yourself a politician. But in that case, Greece itself, the country, is your investment, i.e. your property in a sense of the word...

If you are not, here is what you are up against:
Cash-flow: it does not flow. And local banks are totally dry, they have been milked to near death by the Greek State. And so will you be milked...

VAT is payable immediately following the invoice date, regardless of whether said invoice is paid or not. VAT is never returned unless the local tax office contained members of your close family. In the old times, you could pay a kick-back of 5-10% and recoup the rest -- but back then there was some cash availability...

Social security contributions: usually payable 2 months following the salary month, now they are to be paid immediately, in the first days of the month following the employees salary disbursement. Also they have increased -- albeit by less than 1%.

Fiscal, tax: legislation usually changes every year. Lately, it has been changing with alarming regularity in mid fiscal year! Hardly the stuff to inspire investors.

GAAP: it is a patchwork of 17,598 pages (in A4 official size pages), containing numerous contradictory items and many unclear regulations. GAAP in Greece were once guestimated by PWC to add 1.5% to hidden costs. Most importantly, the governing principle behind Greek GAAP is that business is suspect.

Controlling agencies and fines: in Greece, a visit from a controlling agency (usually two-three persons casually clad, often unshaven and sometimes unwashed ) means, a fine. The fine is served in a friendly spirit whereby "you can take us to court, and I'm sure the judge will absolve you". Meanwhile, in order to contest you have to pay 50% of the fine up front. There is no intermediate recourse in most cases!
The governing concept here is not enmity but suspicion. "You are guilty of something, no doubt. Even I can't tell what it is, you know what it is. If it is, the judge will sort it out."

 And that, as saying goes, is that.

So, we are all welcome in Greece -- to throw money at it, best do it in cartloads.

As to investments & business...this is the time to repeat, business and investment is just not how this country works now!