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Old 11-20-2007, 10:25 PM
tprnottp tprnottp is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: South of the Mason/Dixon Line
Posts: 51
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Welcome to the wonderful world of Socialism. As you may already know, Greece has a socialist government, which means, it firmly believes in high taxation to, in part, redistribute wealth.
What you're seeing price-wise, are the effects of hefty taxation on what may possibly be considered by the Greek government as a luxury item; and, if I'm not mistaken, the Greek government uses the "value-added" (aka "Flat Tax") tax rate system.
I'm curious, have you tried exploring the used bike market in Greece? If their tax structure is similar to a recently proposed US tax makeover--known as the "Fair Tax Act"--sales of used items could possibly be tax-free, or at least at a reduced tax rate. If you're lucky, you might find that the "used" market is the way to go. And, since you're only going to be in Greece for a couple of years--why not buy used???

Good luck,

TP
'03 EC 300
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