ATHENS – Greece improved its tax competitiveness, climbing four places in this year’s International Tax Competitiveness Index (ITCI) rankings published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

From 33rd out of 38 OECD members, Greece ended up 29th, the Athens-based nonprofit Center for Liberal Studies (KEFIM) said on Tuesday, in collaboration with the Washington-based Tax Foundation.

The index “seeks to measure the extent to which a country’s tax system adheres to two important aspects of tax policy: competitiveness and neutrality,” noted the Tax Foundation, and uses over 40 variables in 5 categories (corporate revenue taxes, individual taxes, consumption taxes, asset taxes, and international taxation regulations).

Greece was graded with 59.2 points in the current index (2022), over 58.6 points in 2021. In specific taxes categories, Greece ranks 19th in corporate taxes, 17th in individual income taxes, 30th in consumer taxes and the same in asset taxes, and 25th in taxation of assets abroad.

In terms of the best competitive taxation code, Estonia ranked first for the 9th consecutive year, while France ranked worst (38th). Greece was preceded by Poland (28th) and followed by Mexico (30th) in the 38-member index.

Greece’s improvement “is the greatest one among OECD countries, along with Turkey. The government’s stated intention of reducing the tax burden must continue, especially in fields such as consumption and asset taxation, where the margin for intervention is great, based on the Index’s data,” KEFIM president Alexandros Skouras said.