The real Greek tax bill is lost in the post
On April 18th last, The Slog led with an IMF report inadvertantly showing the draconian new tax measures being set up for after the Greek elections this coming Sunday.
Nobody in the Western MSM went near the story, but the better-informed Greeks have since been voting with their feet by leaving the Pasok and New Democracy Parties in their droves.
Yesterday leading Greek newspaper Ekathimerini healdined with a piece entitled ‘Tax avalanche to follow elections’. This is further bad news for the pro-Troika Parties, who have been trying to rubbish such reports (ever since the first revelations nearly three weeks ago) with risible talk about ‘unfortunate delays’ and ‘forgetfulness’.
But Ekathimerini this time uses Ministerial leaks to dish the dirt on how calculated the ‘delay’ has been in trying to hoodwink the electors:
‘A top Finance Ministry official told Kathimerini that the delivery of the ETAK slips was put off following an intervention from the higher echelons of the government.
“We were even forced to withdraw all ETAK data from the TAXISnet electronic system in order to prevent people that visited the tax authorities for any other purpose from having to pay their ETAK,” the same official added. (The ETAK is a Single Property Tax still delayed from 2009.)’
The additional taxes will have to be processed as early as possible in order to meet the Troika’s omnivorous needs. Probably the first tax clearance slips will be sent for income tax payment at the end of July. Those slips will also include the solidarity tax and the profession fee, which this year will soar by a massive 66% to 500 euros from 300 euros last year.
By then, of course, the eurozone might be in such deep doo-doo, those tax bills will be irrelevant – but don’t hold your breath. Just as pro-EU politicians ban elections, ignore elections, postpone elections, redo elections, and put off tax bills until after elections, they can do precisely the same via Mario Draghi’s increasingly junk-strewn ECB with budgets and bailouts. The problem becomes real only when an election fails to vote in a coalition prepared to go along with this sadistic madness….and this now looks increasingly likely in Greece.
I still can’t grasp what bit of this potential disaster for the eurocrats the MSM doesn’t get. I was accused by a media acquaintance earlier this week of “becoming an anorak about Greek election politics”. Apart from Jeremy Hunt’s lies, Spain’s impending meltdown, and the likelihood of two fingers being stuck up to the EU in Athens come next Monday, I can’t think of anything more apposite to write about.
There is a global misapprehension at large in 2012, and it is this: that knowing the latest news in a 24/7 world means you’re well informed. It does not. A flood of hits comes to The Slog when something sensationally unreported elsewhere comes to light. But the best revelations (yesterday’s post on Jeremy Hunt, for example) get lower hits and attract new readers – who stay long after the news-junkies have left.
Earlier this week I posted a piece about our own ‘leaders’ being completely out of touch on the real effect of falling incomes and rising costs as austerity bites. Precisely the same lesson should be read to the Troikanauts: have they worked out yet that greasing palms on the end of Grecian arms doesn’t butter the parsnips? Does Christine Lagarde know what a pint of milk costs? Does she know which way is up? Does she know the what the capital of Paraguay is?
Footnote: Had a greater degree of Greek debt been forgiven a year earlier, and Greece evicted from the eurozone, both sides in the affray would now be financially and market-sentiment better off. The Bank of Greece this week forecast a 3% drop in tourism for 2012 (Greece’s biggest earner), whereas if the country went back to the Drachma, holidaymakers would be flooding there in their millions. All such things should be borne in mind (Pound or no Pound) when this sort of nonsense starts to happen here.
Related: Postponing the future in Greece
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