How Greece taxes a retirement plan

We model these and we know we do not get them exactly right. Where the size could be measured, it is stated.

• The solidarity levy on pensions is charged in eight steps, and we charge a single smooth rate instead. That always comes out lower than the real thing, so your tax is understated, by nothing at the bottom and by up to about 2,470 a year at the top.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €2,467 a year/anyone drawing a Greek pension above the levy's exemption threshold

• We charge the health contribution on your whole pension, where the law charges it after the solidarity levy has been taken off. That overstates it slightly, and it partly cancels the understatement above.

  Your real tax is lower/up to €288 a year/anyone drawing a Greek pension

• A loss can be carried forward for five years, but only against gains on the same kind of holding, and the law does not define what counts as the same kind. We pool losses within a year across all of them and carry forward without that restriction.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone holding a fund based outside the European Union in a Greek taxable account

• The yearly charge on Greek funds is not a fixed rate: the law ties it to the European Central Bank's policy rate. We hold it flat at today's level. On an equity fund that means 0.1 percent of the holding a year if the policy rate were zero, and 0.5 percent if it were 4 percent, against the 0.365 percent we use.

  Could go either way/anyone holding Greek managed funds over a long plan

• That yearly charge is paid by the fund, and Greece's own regulator counts it inside a fund's published ongoing charges. If the fee you entered came from a Greek fund's published figure, you are paying it twice here. Nothing in your answers tells us where your fee came from, so we cannot detect it.

  Your real tax is lower/anyone whose fee assumption came from a Greek fund's published charges

• We assume a fund based in the United States pays 30 percent to the United States on its dividends, because the treaty with Greece gives no lower rate. For a bond fund that is the most it can pay: some of what it pays out can be exempt, so for bond funds we may charge a little too much. European rules keep most retail investors out of these funds in the first place.

  Your real tax is lower/anyone holding a fund based in the United States

• We track one profit fraction across your whole taxable account, so a tax free European fund and a taxable one are assumed to have made the same proportional gain. That is exact if you bought everything at once, and wrong if you switched between them part way.

  Could go either way/anyone who moved between fund types part way through

• We treat the profit on selling Greek government bonds as tax free. The law is not clear that it is, and we took the generous reading. The interest they pay is clearly exempt and that is the larger number, so holding to maturity is unaffected either way.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone selling Greek government bonds before maturity

These exist in law and we leave them out, usually because applying them would need a question we do not ask.

• A pensioner who moves to Greece from abroad can choose to pay a flat 7 percent on all foreign income for up to 15 years instead of the normal scale. We always charge the normal scale, so for someone who takes this option we show far too much tax: roughly 8,700 a year instead of about 2,800 on a 40,000 foreign pension.

  Your real tax is lower/up to €5,900 a year/foreign pensioners who move their tax home to Greece

• Greece charges an extra levy on pensioners under 60, up to 10 percent of the pension above a monthly threshold, and it stops the month after your sixtieth birthday. We do not charge it, so an early retiree's tax is understated. In our source material a pensioner at 58 pays about 3,520 a year that we do not show, and ends up roughly 2,135 a year worse off than the same person at 61.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €3,520 a year/anyone drawing a Greek pension before 60, which is exactly the early retirement this tool is built to model

• Both the tax scale and the standard reduction are more generous if you have dependent children, and we never ask. With three children the reduction rises from 777 to 1,340 and one slice of income is charged at 9 percent instead of 20, worth about 1,100 a year on its own.

  Your real tax is lower/up to €2,100 a year/retirees with dependent children

• Interest on bonds you hold yourself is taxed at 15 percent in Greece unless they are Greek government bonds or listed company bonds. Our list of choices has no option for, say, German or American government bonds or unlisted company bonds, so picking the nearest one shows too little tax on them. Profit on listed shares is also taxed at 15 percent if you own 0.5 percent or more of the company, which we do not model.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €300 a year/anyone holding bonds other than Greek government or listed company bonds directly, or 0.5 percent or more of a listed company

• Auxiliary pensions carry their own levy of 3 to 10 percent above a monthly floor, plus their own health charge. We model one pension rather than a main and an auxiliary one, so if you have both, your tax is understated.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone with a Greek auxiliary pension on top of their main one

• There is a guard in the law that stops the solidarity levy pushing a pension in the lowest band below that band's floor. We do not apply it. It only bites in the lowest band, where our levy is already close to right, so the effect is small and could run either way.

  Could go either way/pensions just inside the lowest solidarity levy band

• A pension paid to someone with a disability of 80 percent or more is entirely free of income tax. We never ask, so if that is you, every income tax figure on this page is too high.

  Your real tax is lower/anyone with an assessed disability of 80 percent or more

• Greece can tax you on an assumed income worked out from your home, cars, boat and pool, if that comes to more than you declared. We do not model it. It does not bite at any realistic pension, but it can for someone with no pension at all.

  Your real tax is higher/someone with little or no Greek pension income

• The tables that set that assumed income per car, boat and pool are published in a form we could not read reliably, so we hold no figures for them.

  Could go either way/someone with little or no Greek pension income

• We could not establish whether the thresholds for the under 60 levy rise with prices the way the solidarity levy's do. Over a long plan that matters, and we would rather say so than guess.

  Could go either way/anyone drawing a Greek pension before 60

• Greece adds a charge of 22 percent on the shortfall if you spend less by card than the rules require. It depends on how you choose to pay for things rather than on your plan, so we treat it as a spending habit rather than a tax.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone who pays for most things in cash

• Selling shares listed in Athens carries a duty of 0.1 percent of the proceeds. It is a cost of trading rather than a tax on your plan, and it is immaterial if you buy and hold.

  Your real tax is higher/anyone trading Athens listed shares often

• Greece has voluntary pension wrappers, chiefly a voluntary occupational fund (TEA) or a group pension contract, and almost nobody uses them: household take up is 0.3 percent against 27.5 percent across the euro area. We offer no account for them. What they pay out is in most cases taxed at its own low flat rate, apart from your other income, so a pension from one is right when entered after tax in the pension step, and a lump sum from one when entered after tax as a one-off lump.

  Could go either way/the very few Greek households with a voluntary pension product

• Greece does not tax rent for the first three years of a new lease of at least three years on a home of up to 120 square metres that stood empty, or was only let short term, before. We cannot see your property's history, so we tax that rent. If it applies to you, we show more tax than you pay for those three years.

  Your real tax is lower/landlords who newly let a previously empty or short-let home on a lease of three years or more

• A pension paid by a voluntary occupational fund (TEA) or a group pension contract is taxed at its own low flat rate, set by when the money was saved and by your age or years in the fund. You cannot pick that treatment for a pension yet. Enter such a pension after tax and it is exactly right. If you enter it before tax, we tax it like a state pension, which is several times too much.

  Your real tax is lower/members of a TEA or a group pension contract who enter the periodic benefit before tax

Separate tax systems, or rules that only bite outside a retirement plan.

• Greece charges reduced rates on income up to 20,000 for people under 31. Nobody drawing a retirement plan is that age, so we do not model it.

  Could go either way/nobody in a retirement plan

• Selling Greek property carries a 15 percent charge on the gain, suspended every year since 2013 and currently suspended to the end of 2026. It is a property tax rather than a portfolio one, so it is outside what we model.

  Could go either way/anyone planning to sell Greek property