More than 23,000 foreign and offshore companies have developed profitable activity in Greece over the last thirty years.
Data released by the Greek newspaper “TA NEA” show that most foreign and offshore companies acquired a Greek taxpayer identification number (TIM) and legal representatives in Greece between the 1980s and 2011. In fact, some of these companies did not cooperate in tax issues with Greece until 2012.
Out of a total of 46 tax havens, authorities found no traces of offshore companies with Greek TIN in twenty of them, while offshore companies with Greek TIN were found in 26 countries, including Liberia, Panama, Marshall Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands and Western Samoa.
In total, authorities traced over 2,200 Greek offshore companies in non-cooperating countries, who had declared over 2,100 legal representatives, tax agents and administrators over the last 30 years.
According to the international non-profit organization Tax Justice Network, tax havens with Greek interest companies have a high opacity index.
An investigation is underway regarding the activity of various offshore companies and their legal representatives, however this task is almost impossible since most tax havens are not cooperating with Greek authorities.
At the moment, authorities have found several people who operated as legal representatives for multiple companies. In fact, one of these people, a lawyer who works in Athens, Greece, appears as the legal representative for 105 offshore companies, most of which are based in Liberia, while 16 have their headquarters in Panama.
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