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Brussels (dpa) - The average employee in Greece will be earning almost 23 per cent less this year, a study by tax consultancy Ernst & Young and two conservative think tanks revealed on Monday.

The report, published by New Direction, a research organization linked to the British conservative partys caucus in the European Parliament, and the Brussels-based Institute Economique Molinari, calculated the tax burden for "typical workers" across the EU.

For Greece, it showed that real net salary - net of income tax, social security contributions and value-added tax (VAT) - was expected to be just 13,167 euros (16,820 dollars) in 2012. Last year, the same report had calculated it to be 17,024 euros.

By comparison, the net salary in Germany was estimated at 23,690 euros this year.

Because of this contraction, the tax burden on Greek workers is due to fall significantly, one of the authors of the report, James Rogers, told dpa.

In 2012, the so-called tax freedom day for Greek workers - marking the day of the year in which they finally earn enough to pay all their annual taxes to the state - is due to fall on May 31. In 2011, tax freedom was achieved only on June 12.

The report confirmed Belgians to be the most heavily taxed people in the EU, with their tax freedom day falling on August 5. Germany was exposed as the fifth-highest tax levying nation, with its tax freedom day on July 12.

The tax burden was found to be lightest in Malta, Cyprus, Ireland and Britain, where tax freedom falls between April 11 and May 12.

Several eurozone nations have been forced to put up taxes in recent years, as they battle with the currency blocs ongoing debt crisis.

In another report, also issued Monday, the EUs statistical office Eurostat said the average standard rate for VAT in the euro area was 20 per cent in 2012, up from 18.1 per cent in 2000.

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LEAD: Salaries in Greece down 23 per cent in 2012, tax study finds Eds: Adds Eurostat figures on eurozone taxation

FLEMINGTON The county Board of Taxation hasnt gotten anywhere near its attempt to hire a full-time tax administrator for a salary of $35,000.

According to board President Anthony Danzo, two qualified candidates responded to its recent advertising. One sought $65,000 a year. The other, Jeff Burd, current assessor in Ewing Township in Mercer County, apparently misread the ad, thinking it offered a salary of $135,000. Once the pay was clarified, he wasn't interested, Danzo reported.

Bergen Countys tax administrator was paid $153,392 last year, according to the state Division of Taxation. Of the 21 county administrators, nine were paid more than $100,000 last year, the state reported.

The countys desire to pay $35,000 is based on that amount being set in a state law about tax administrators and is the minimum Hunterdon can pay, based on its population. The figure was set in 1979 and has never been raised; the tax board believes it must offer a competitive salary to attract good candidates.

Hunterdon tax administrator Athan Tom Efstathiou, who died last August while attending a professional conference, had a 2011 salary of $92,392. He was the tax administrator since 1994.

Freeholder Director Rob Walton has said Efstathiou was paid too much, and that the county only needs a part-time tax administrator.

Assemblywoman Donna Simon, who lives in Readington Township, is drafting legislation that would give county officials the freedom to decide whether a part-time administrator could sufficiently meet the needs of their constituents. At present, state law mandates a full-time tax administrator.

Walton has said the county would like to share a tax administrator with another county. State Sen. Mike Doherty has drafted a bill to change the law to allow that.

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Hunterdon tax administrator job pays $100,000 less than candidate thought

Analysts expect this fall's election to turn on the economy. President of the American Enterprise Institute Arthur C. Brooks wants to deepen the debate on the economy by discussing which economic policies are morally right. Brooks talks to Steve Inskeep about his book, The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Economic issues are shaping this year's presidential campaign, as we're hearing in this morning's news. Arthur C. Brooks, of the American Enterprise Institute, says that debate involves more than money. It's a question of which economic policies are morally right.

ARTHUR C. BROOKS: This is one of the greatest weaknesses of people on the political right and free enterprise advocates in America today; is this inability or unwillingness to make moral arguments. People who are not especially sympathetic to the free enterprise system have very successfully been making moral arguments. The leitmotif of the 2012 campaign, it turns out, is going to be fairness, and that's a moral argument.

INSKEEP: Brooks tries to counter that with a moral argument for free enterprise. His new book, "The Road to Freedom," contends that people are happier with less government, which leads to another big question of 2012 - how much less government?

Help me define, as you see it, the responsibility of government - because as people who read this book will know, you're not an advocate of no government. You see a place, it seems, for a social safety net and so forth. So what are the limits?

BROOKS: The government should be doing two things, basically. The first is providing a minimum basic safety net for the truly indigent. That means enough food, enough housing, enough medical care. Today, the safety net we have in this country reaches all the way up into the middle class.

People who retire, middle-class people who retire, take three times as much out of the Social Security system they ever paid in. That's completely unsustainable, and it's not fair. And that's a really important thing to keep in mind.

We also have a social safety net that's trying to take the risks out of life, that's trying to achieve greater income equality. That's the wrong basis for a social safety net. Social safety net should be relieving the worst suffering.

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'Road To Freedom': Moral Debate For Free Enterprise

A proposed housing complex in Kerrville for senior and disabled veterans has been dealt a major setback denial by the state of its application for federal tax credits to help fund the $8.2 million project.

It's devastating, Communities for Veterans LLC principal Craig Taylor said Thursday of the 4-2 vote last week by the Department of Housing and Community Affairs board.

He plans to resubmit an application to the agency next year for the 100-unit complex, called Freedom's Path in Kerrville, that is slated for construction on the campus of the Veterans Affairs Department hospital in Kerrville.

Although supported by Kerr County commissioners and Hill Country veterans groups, Taylor won the necessary backing of the Kerrville City Council for the project only two days before the March 1 deadline to apply to the state for tax credits.

He made the deadline, seeking $750,000 in tax credits annually for 10 years for the 49-unit phase one.

But key elements were missing, rendering the application materially deficient and prompting the agency staff to terminate it, said Department of Housing and Community Affairs spokesman Gordon Anderson.

Taylor's appeal of the termination, heard May 10, faced opposition from Granger McDonald, a Kerrville developer who is among those seeking $550,000 in tax credits for an apartment complex in Comfort.

Anderson said Comfort Place and the VA project were the only applicants this spring for tax credits in the multicounty rural region that includes Kerr County.

McDonald also was affiliated with River Vista LP, the preferred contractor for a prior VA plan to build an 80-unit housing complex for homeless veterans in Kerrville.

Citing local opposition to hosting a homeless facility whose tenants potentially would include non-veterans, McDonald withdrew from that project in 2010.

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Tax credits denied for Kerrville VA housing

A Monongalia County homeowner is suing the Kanawha County assessor's office to get computerized data used for determining tax assessments.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A Monongalia County homeowner is suing the Kanawha County assessor's office to get computerized data used for determining tax assessments.

David McKain, an engineer who owns a house in Monongalia County, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Kanawha Circuit Court. McKain went to court after officials in the assessor's office would not release Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal data that assessors use to determine real estate property values.

McKain argues the computerized information is public information under the state Freedom of Information Act. He wants the court to rule that the records are public, order assessors to release the information and pay his court costs.

"I don't know that they're doing something bad in Kanawha County," McKain said Friday. "I just want to determine if they're doing what they're supposed to do."

McKain said he bought a home in Monongalia County in 2007, but was surprised when his taxes jumped by about 60 percent the next year. He became concerned about the way real estate was assessed in the county, and asked for the computerized data assessors use to figure out property values.

McKain said he won a court battle in Monongalia County to get data similar to what he is requesting of Kanawha County officials. He said assessors in Monongalia County have since changed the way they determine property values.

McKain, who runs the tax reform website http://www.monfairassessments.org, said he asked for Kanawha County appraisal data to see how other counties determine property values. McKain requested Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal data for a single home on Oakmont Road in Charleston from 2005 through 2012.

But Steve Sluss, staff attorney for Kanawha County Assessor Phyllis Gatson, said local officials don't think the computerized appraisal data should be open to the public.

"We believe it's private information about peoples' homes," Sluss said. "We ask a lot of detailed information about their homes that they probably don't want other people to know about."

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Homeowner wants computer data on tax assessments