The political economy of the distributional character of the Greek taxation system (1995–2008)

The period between 1995 and 2008 is one of the fundamental transformations in the Greek economy. In that sense, we would expect an equally drastic change to have taken place in the structure of the taxation system. Nevertheless, no such change occurred. The explanation of this seeming paradox should be sought in the peculiar distributive (as opposed to redistributive) character of the Greek taxation system. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence for this phenomenon from a political economy perspective. The first section examines the general trends of taxation in Greece during the period 1995–2008 and the structure of personal income taxation. The second section delineates the basic features of the reform in income taxation and land taxation effected by the conservative government; lastly, the third part provides some critical commentary on the data as well as an interpretive context for the peculiar features of the Greek taxation system