Self-employed professionals swarm to close their books

Thousands of self-employed professionals are rushing to tax offices to close their books or transform their companies in order to avoid the additional burden imposed on them by the new social security system.

Major accounting offices are reporting an increase in their workload mainly due to such cases. They are mostly impressed by the fact that thousands of those professionals had kept their books open, and been paying the annual 650-euro fee to practice a profession – which the Greek state will now miss out on – despite not being their own boss for years.

Asked why they had chosen to keep their books open despite being inactive for years, many said they had done so in hope that they would find enough work to support themselves.

Accountants now estimate that queues at tax offices will be very long next week, and an extension is likely to the January 30 deadline for book closing.