From today Greek pay TV will be more expensive, since it returns the end in favor of the State
Πabout 10% more expensive it seems, the Greeks will pay for their subscription TV from July 1th, since the fee in favor of the State is reinstated, which will be charged additionally 10% of the subscription value, i.e. the price including the fixed fee collected in favor of the business before value added tax.
According to information, the financial staff did not decide on the suspension of the tax, which had been imposed for the first time on Iuni of 2016 with the prefecture 4830/2021, but was suspended by a relevant regulation from 1 of October 2020 until the end of this month.
It is worth noting, however, that the tax on the subscription will be borne by them consumers who maintain a subscription to domestic pay TV content providers and not on international platforms that are available in our country, such as Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, etc., since these companies do not maintain a branch in our country with a Greek VAT number.
This is the reason why the domestic providers throughout the previous period made concerted efforts to request the extension of the suspension of the fee until 2023. In this context, in fact COSMOTE, VODAFONE and NOVA – WIND, through the Union of Mobile Telephony Companies, sent a letter to the Greek government, but without any success, stressing among other things that the policy in question distorts competition.
According to market circles, it is estimated that in the final price that a subscriber pays each month, approximately 30% corresponds to taxes, a percentage that will approach 40% when the fee is returned to the State. "These charges create conditions of unhealthy competition for the Greek audiovisual content platforms Over the Top, since they are called upon to make bold investments in order to offer content as competitive as that of foreign providers who do not bear the same tax burden» they complete.
The news will be unpleasant for both providers and subscribers, but not for public revenues, since domestic providers have a total of more than 1,1 million subscribers, according to the latest figures from EETT.
This is perhaps also the reason why, as a possible market consolidation scenario, the imposition of financial obligations on foreign providers is not excluded. Let us recall that as he pointed out in a recent answer to a parliamentary question, the competent deputy minister in addition to the prime minister, Giannis Oikonomou, Greece has the possibility to impose financial obligations on foreign providers that have video-on-demand services in Greek, after the integration of the European directive 2018/1808.
Of course, the aforementioned obligations provide for an annual contribution of his class 1,5% on the turnover of international providers from the activity in Greece, with the aim of either the production of Greek audiovisual content or the purchase of rights to Greek audiovisual works that have not yet been released, while these obligations also include exceptions, if, for example, the providers have a small market share or low turnover.
Accordingly, however, the government has the right, after the agreement signed last October with the OECD, to impose a tax rate of 15% on the profitability of multinational companies and, by extension, foreign streaming service providers, starting from January 1, 2023.
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