Greece Donkey Droppings

Greek bureaucracy is much like swings and roundabouts

Sometimes it seems like Greek systems are designed so they could never be understood by someone who isn’t Greek.

For me this creates a dilemma. I like to be able to sort things for myself: to understand how to do things then get them done without having to rely on someone else to do it for me. I’m not a control freak (although I do have my moments) but I know I’m an intelligent human being who is perfectly capable of dealing with things, and of understanding them. But here we are in Greece  where it’s not always that easy.

Take taxes.

We know we have to make a tax declaration even though we don’t don’t expect to pay any tax yet. We first spoke to a local accountant last spring and explained our situation, conscious of a potential deadline. ‘Come back in January’ he said, which we did, to be told ‘Come back in March’ which left us wondering why we’d been told January. ‘Come back in May’ was the next offering.

Lulled into a feeling that we were going to be sent away on every visit, and knowing we have little, if any tax liability at this stage, we didn’t rush back at the beginning of May but sauntered in mid-month. This time we were told the deadline was the end of May, a fact we would have liked to know earlier, but clearly weren’t to be worried with. It also appeared that we should be sponsored by a Greek person, and that having non-resident status could be better for our tax situation. An interesting point, since we needed a tax number and residence permit to buy a car and to buy land. No-one asked us for a Greek sponsor when we applied for the tax number. And all we had to do to get residence permits was go to the police station and ask…

We were also told that we need to supply information regarding our rental arrangement, depending on how we want to deal with it – we do have a choice, it seems. We can declare that we are renting, in which case we need to show monies paid each month and our landlord’s tax details. Or we can choose not declare, in which case we still need to provide our landlord’s tax number, but in this instance to indicate whose ‘guest’ we are. Seems the tax authorities are happy to accept that people accommodate others for months, even years, without taking any payment for it (and even when they’re not family).

The next step was to discuss this with our landlord. We didn’t mind either way, but there could be a tax liability for her if we declare the rental, so we felt it should be her choice. Her reaction wasn’t the one we expected. Yes, she was happy to give us her tax number but she was more concerned that we were going to someone else to submit our taxes in the first place. ‘Give me your papers’, she said, and I’ll put them through my accountant.

‘But if you do it all for us we won’t understand the process’, I said, ‘and what happens if you’re not around in the future?’ To her credit she fully understands this viewpoint, even though it’s not the one taken by every foreign resident, many of whom are happy to hand everything over and not think about it. She’s agreed to explain the paperwork to us, and said that once we are settled in our own home we can – of course – do this ourselves, although she would still be happy to provide this service, as she does for other people.

Then there’s bank accounts:

When we first arrived we opened an account with one of the local banks, managing to get money transferred and a cash card issued without any help. The latter involved persuading the cashier to get our card sent to the bank for collection since we didn’t have our own individual postbox. But as interest rates in the UK headed towards zero and the exchange rate also headed resolutely in a downwards direction, we decided it was time to minimise our future losses and get our remaining funds over to Greece.

The question to our landlady was simple (so we thought): can you please help us to look at Greek banking websites and work out which is the best option for our savings. The involvement we were seeking was clearly defined: help us understand the system so we can make a decision and act.

The solution was different. Once again we found ourselves caught up, being helped beyond what we had asked for. This time our landlady spoke with a friend of hers who worked in a local bank, and also mentioned our request to her father (in passing we assume though you can never be sure) who told her of offers in other banks. The upshot was that a few days later we found ourselves being introduced to our landlady’s friend and being offered a savings rate that was very competitive.

And even though we were happy to accept the first rate offered she kept nudging it up a little higher until we knew we had an excellent rate. Something we wouldn’t have achieved without our landlady’s help. We would never have known that it is possible to negotiate an individual savings rate, different from the standard advertised one. And even if we did know, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve it without a Greek go-between.

Okay, the final decision to deposit the money was ours, but who’s going to get up and walk away from the best interest rate on offer?

So it really is a swings and roundabouts situation. To find your way around the intricacies and quirks of Greek officialdom is challenging for a non-Greek (and many Greeks as well I’d guess). Going it alone is possible, but sometimes being willing to give up some of that control gets you the better result.