Fines have become absurdly high. If one forgets to include a employee in the monthly statements to the National Social Security Service (IKA), regardless of the fact that the employer might have been employing him/her legally having followed all necessary procedures (such as declaring to the state that the employee has been hired), or that the employer might have paid all required social security contributions, the fine is 10,500 euros.
If one does not file a statement for the VAT or for any other taxes that one is obliged to collect, as if one were the IRS, the fine is 1,000 euros (regardless of the fact that one might not have to pay any collected taxes). Private enterprises are to be taxed at 26% starting from the first Euro plus an extra 650 or 1,000 Euro yearly “fee” for operating. This tax rate, combined with a 55% prepayment on tax for next year, will choke financially all small enterprises.
As a result, one has to congratulate the government for managing to gather that many accountants in one place. This must have been the first ever protest march in Greece by people with suits and briefcases, which accounts for the multitude of one-man police regiments guarding some of the streets that the march was not supposed to enter. Monty Python would be proud.