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Private doctors practicing in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Athens declare income equal to the one of public employees, which makes tax authorities believe they are misrepresenting their income. One out of five in every 151 doctors, who practice in Kolonaki neighborhood declare that they have annual income less than €10 000!

Again one out of every five doctors declare income less than €20 000 and only 11 private doctors declare income over €100 000, said Economy Minister Georgios Papakonstantinou, who referred to data given by the Chief Information Systems Secretariat. It is “remarkable” that three doctors have even declared annual income of between €300 and €1 002!

“We will begin with income tax audits of private doctors but after that we will check the accounting of other professionals, for who citizens believe they are dodging taxes,” said Minister Papakosntantinou.

Doctors are in the first group, which will be targeted by auditors from the Ministry of Economy and later on freelance professionals such as lawyers, engineers and construction contractors, will be investigated. Typical examples of possible income misrepresentation is the fact that bar owners declare on average annual income of about €5 212, singers - €11 342, restaurant owners - €8 154 and plumbers - €8 143!

Solving the tax evasion problem is the biggest issue for the government, because billions of Euros can go to the state treasury from there. Based on calculations done by the National Bank of Greece tax evasion accounts for about €35 billion and based on data provided by the Chief Information Systems Secretariat 93% out of 383 818 freelance professionals have declared annual income of less than €30 000.