The controversial bill seeks to introduce different ways of calculating tax for freelancers, a wide segment of professionals that includes anyone from a translator working individually to a law or medical office. The bill will be tabled and discussed in plenary on Wednesday.

In a review posted on Tuesday evening, the parliament’s Council noted that the Greek constitution allows, in a general and impersonal way, the introduction of proof to put an end to tax evasion, but on condition that the evidence (‘tekmiria’) agree with factors of common experience, and are contestable.

The Council’s reservations focus on the issue of ‘factors of common experience’ used to calculate income: there is no detailed explanation in the new bill of what these consist of, and there is a question of whether the basis of calculating the evidence (that will lead to a tax assessment) actually agrees with the country’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, which has ruled that wage earners and non-wage-earners, or freelancers, work under “fundamentally different work and income-producing conditions”.

In contrast to wage earners, the income of freelancers is under constant flux, the Council said, and does not relate to factors that determine the legally established minimum wage, or the wage of the highest-paid working employee. It could even be negative (registering losses), especially in the handicrafts and commerce sectors.

“Therefore, invoking the lessons of common experience to adduce evidence on the amount of the minimum net income from business activity that an individual may gain based on the legally set minimum wage, or, much more so, on the income of the highest-paid working employee, appears, potentially, problematic,” the Council said in its report.

In addition, it pointed out that common experience has shown that carrying out business activities is much different in large urban centers than in towns or villages with over 500 residents. The evidence of income (tekmirio) should be structured in multiple tiers that would take into account geographic location and population of the city or village of the freelancer, it added.

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