Beating tax evasion is one of the government’s top priority, with Finance Ministry sources stressing that tackling further tax evasion could add to budget revenues on a permanent and annual basis. 

The state-run Athens-Macedonian news agency quoted Finance Ministry sources as saying that this additional money boosted by economic growth will be used to cover part or all of possible welfare benefits or lower taxation. 

These calculations were based on the VAT gap as measured by the European Commission, which is the only objective figure for measuring tax evasion.

The VAT gap in Greece was 23.4% in 2019, according to Commission figures, falling to 19.7% a year later and is estimated to be roughly 15% currently.

The reduction of 8.4 percentage points corresponds to annual revenues of 2.5 billion euros, of which 2 billion euros stems from VAT and 500 million euros from higher corporate taxation.