“Welcome to Greece. I cannot exchange a piece of land because of my debts to the Greek state. Serious??? We pay tens of thousands of Euros in taxes every year, and they obstruct me from doing business because of 3 freaking cents. Why don’t you all f@#@ yourselves at the tax office and in Parliament”
This is what an enraged Dutch businessman in Greece posted on his Facebook page about his experience with the country’s absurd tax services payment method.
The owner of the Karanika winery in Florina, Laurence Hartman explained to Voria.gr that in his effort to expand his business a debt of 3 Euro cents to the tax office prevented him from completing the transaction.
As he explained: “A while ago we wanted to sell an area to invest in a warehouse for our business. It is an investment we make as we wish to expand our winery. ”
“In order to sell the land we had to have the tax clearance certificate. However, the employee at the Florina tax office told us that we owed money and we could not get the tax certificate. ” According to the tax registrar, it was a debt linked to the single property tax (ENFIA), but Hartman pointed out that the company’s obligations with regard to this tax had been paid, with an amount of EUR 380.
It is worth noting that in the past the winemaker had faced serious issues with the Greek tax services, which he says had forced him to consider selling his business altogether and leaving Greece.