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.

• Greek spouses file together but are taxed separately, and nothing transfers between them. We model that, but we still give the couple both sets of allowances even when only one of them has a pension, so a one pension couple's tax is understated.

  Your real tax is higher/up to €5,267 a year/couples where only one partner has a pension

• 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

• Rent has its own scale in Greece, running from 15 to 45 percent. We charge it on the same scale as your pension instead, which is close at some income levels and not at others.

  Could go either way/anyone with Greek rental income

• 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 0.34 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 15 percent to the United States on its dividends. Our source says that, and the United States' own treaty table disagrees and shows no reduced rate for Greece. If the higher figure is right, the cost of holding one of these is understated. European rules keep most retail investors out of them in the first place.

  Your real tax is higher/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.

• 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

• 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, and almost nobody uses them: household take up is 0.3 percent against 27.5 percent across the euro area. We treat a Greek retirement account as taxed on the way out, which is right for these, and we do not model the wrappers themselves.

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

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