The extent to which Greece is saturated with tax evasion was well
illustrated in John Humphries' excellent BBC Panorama programme last
Monday. As well as showing the varying degrees of poverty now
descending on most of the population, Humphries had a chat with a
Prof Diomidis Spinellis, one of Greece's top software engineers. Some
two years ago, he was asked by the Finance Minister to devise a
method to replace the self-reporting tax forms currently in use by
those who work for themselves -- rich businessmen but also the
hundreds of thousands of professionals such as lawyers, doctors,
accountants and dentists who have lovely houses, swimming pools in
the garden, top marque cars, yachts in the local marina, expensive
private education for their children, etc but declare no taxable income at all.
Prof Spinellis did so and delivered his report to the government
minister. It would not have saved Greece's financial predicament
immediately but would have been a big step forward. Being on the
young side of middle age, Spinellis was naive enough to hope that
some reform would actually emerge. Nothing happened. He then realized
that the government's own taxation officials were explicitly
involved. A great deal of the untaxed money was going into officials'
pockets. Any possibility of reform was being sabotaged at a high
level. For his own satisfaction, Spinellis then set about devising
an improvement to his proposed system that would also render it
fool-proof at its collection end. He delivered this report to the
government also.
A great deal happened then. The senior tax collector's union sued
him. The Panorama programme didn't say, but, presumably, this attempt
fell by the wayside because Prof Spinellis didn't appear to be too
hazed as he related it. (Perhaps Greece still has uncorrupt judges?)
Anyhow, the net result was just the same -- no action by the
government. John Humphries asked whether anything could be done at
all. "Nothing can be done to improve the present system." Spinellis
replied. "A completely new system must be brought in from the start."
Well, since the programme must have been recorded at least two or
three weeks ago, a new election has taken place since. The new
government has not announced the possibility of any new tax system.
Instead, it wants even more concessions from the Eurozone. German
workers will no longer tolerate further subsidies into what they see
as a bottomless pit. Greece's imminent exit from the Eurozone seems
almost certain now. If Spinellis's opinion is any guide, then
corruption is already so deep in what I call the 20-class that only
some sort of revolution or coup d'etat that institutes a realistic
taxation system could then rescue Greece from further penury.
The epigenetic propensities to simple authoritarianism, last
expressed by years of acquiescence during the 'Regime of the
Colonels' in the 1970s, will still be present in the Greek culture.
Once Greece's exit from the Eurozone takes place then I would bet
that an army take-over, rather than a revolution from the streets,
will be the likely -- and immediate -- outcome.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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