Greek Financial Crisis

[roydo]

Well, for a start the lenders should've been more careful with their money a long time ago. If they had been, the impact would've been less catastrophic for all than it will now. The lenders need to acknowledge their role in that respect.

Whats that phrase? If you owe the bank £10000 its your problem, if you owe them £10m its theirs?

 

[daylightrobber]

Has anyone explained what is likely to happen to the German owned toll roads in Greece, if Greece leave the EU? I know in the scheme of things it's a small issue, but if there's one thing that really winds Athenians up its having to pay a German tax to use their ring road.

 

[The Equaliser]

Well, for a start the lenders should've been more careful with their money a long time ago. If they had been, the impact would've been less catastrophic for all than it will now. The lenders need to acknowledge their role in that respect.

Yes the lenders are hugely responsible for the whole sorry mess but many people were sensible enough not to take on a debt that they couldn't afford. Others were not and got mortgages which they now cannot repay and want to have at least partly written off.

Maybe Greece should get more time to repay, but if their debt is written off it is a smack in the face those of us who have endured austerity for the last 5 years, seen our standard of living fall, taken pay cuts and worked longer hours, etc. It would send out the wrong message IMO.

 

[Fearthainn]

You should go back and read the posts mate. Have you been on holiday there? I have and as said before where ever I went for a drink, petrol or a restuarant they all demanded payment in cash, no debit catrds, no CCs so what does that tell you? How about if you ask for a bill the waiter writes it down on a napkin? Add to that I know people who have used buses and witnessed the driver pocketing the cash and giving no ticket.

So what are your experiences? Please note Greece were on top of the table for tax evasion.

I have never experienced that and I have been on a couple of occasions, I have only been to the mainland though.

It is still completely irrelevant because you can't go off personal experience to claim all Greeks are at it and all Greeks are to blame.

 

[daylightrobber]

Yes the lenders are hugely responsible for the whole sorry mess but many people were sensible enough not to take on a debt that they couldn't afford. Others were not and got mortgages which they now cannot repay and want to have at least partly written off.

Maybe Greece should get more time to repay, but if their debt is written off it is a smack in the face those of us who have endured austerity for the last 5 years, seen our standard of living fall, taken pay cuts and worked longer hours, etc. It would send out the wrong message IMO.

Understood and the rest of us will be good for borrowing in the future. Greece may not be.

 

[Toffeelover]

I have never experienced that and I have been on a couple of occasions, I have only been to the mainland though.

It is still completely irrelevant because you can't go off personal experience to claim all Greeks are at it and all Greeks are to blame.

Not just my experience but many friends who have holidayed there. Look at the post by Bizarro some pages back about the Greek's tax evasion.

 

[sageyefc]

I have never experienced that and I have been on a couple of occasions, I have only been to the mainland though.

It is still completely irrelevant because you can't go off personal experience to claim all Greeks are at it and all Greeks are to blame.

TBH a large majority of them arent exactly honest with the tax man through out the country

 

[roydo]

This is worth a look.

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1573930.ece

 

[The Esk]

You should go back and read the posts mate. Have you been on holiday there? I have and as said before where ever I went for a drink, petrol or a restuarant they all demanded payment in cash, no debit catrds, no CCs so what does that tell you? How about if you ask for a bill the waiter writes it down on a napkin? Add to that I know people who have used buses and witnessed the driver pocketing the cash and giving no ticket.

So what are your experiences? Please note Greece were on top of the table for tax evasion.

Whilst I'm sure the cash economy reduces the tax take as it does around the world, the evidence is that the greatest losses in tax revenues come from businesses and high net worth individuals.

Corruption was endemic in Greece. In 2010 the then Greek Government decided to centralise tax collection. It reduced the number of tax offices from 290 to 120 and persuaded as many debtors as possible to pay tax arrears either by direct debit or direct through the internet. As a result by 2013 Greece was collecting between 80 and 90% of its collection targets as against 20% in 2010. This was against a background of an enormous reduction in tax collectors. How did they achieve this? by focusing on those that had the biggest arrears and the means to pay, i.e. the corporates and the high net worths.

Sure they had a huge way to go in sorting the mess, but they were making progress.

Even Tsipras saw tax collection as a necessary discipline to sorting Greece's problems. “We should see tax as a tool for regaining our national sovereignty.”

 

[Toffeelover]

Whilst I'm sure the cash economy reduces the tax take as it does around the world, the evidence is that the greatest losses in tax revenues come from businesses and high net worth individuals.

Corruption was endemic in Greece. In 2010 the then Greek Government decided to centralise tax collection. It reduced the number of tax offices from 290 to 120 and persuaded as many debtors as possible to pay tax arrears either by direct debit or direct through the internet. As a result by 2013 Greece was collecting between 80 and 90% of its collection targets as against 20% in 2010. This was against a background of an enormous reduction in tax collectors. How did they achieve this? by focusing on those that had the biggest arrears and the means to pay, i.e. the corporates and the high net worths.

Sure they had a huge way to go in sorting the mess, but they were making progress.

Even Tsipras saw tax collection as a necessary discipline to sorting Greece's problems. “We should see tax as a tool for regaining our national sovereignty.”

Paul, if they have to leave the Euro just watch for a pile of mattress money appearing just like when the drachma was dropped and Greece joined the Euro.

 

[bizzaro]

Whilst I'm sure the cash economy reduces the tax take as it does around the world, the evidence is that the greatest losses in tax revenues come from businesses and high net worth individuals.

Corruption was endemic in Greece. In 2010 the then Greek Government decided to centralise tax collection. It reduced the number of tax offices from 290 to 120 and persuaded as many debtors as possible to pay tax arrears either by direct debit or direct through the internet. As a result by 2013 Greece was collecting between 80 and 90% of its collection targets as against 20% in 2010. This was against a background of an enormous reduction in tax collectors. How did they achieve this? by focusing on those that had the biggest arrears and the means to pay, i.e. the corporates and the high net worths.

Sure they had a huge way to go in sorting the mess, but they were making progress.

Even Tsipras saw tax collection as a necessary discipline to sorting Greece's problems. “We should see tax as a tool for regaining our national sovereignty.”

There's a significant proportion of tax evaders in greece who earn £30000 - £100000 a year.

This was based on a satellite survey of swimming pools compared to tax records

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/.../Greece-loses-15bn-a-year-to-tax-evasion.html

Greece loses €15bn a year to tax evasion
Greek taxmen are under pressure to make a bigger contribution to easing the country's financial pain by collecting more money. The government is providing encouragement by cutting their numbers, salaries and closing 130 tax offices.

There have been some imaginative attempts to widen the collection pool. Helicopters have been hovering over plush suburbs in northern Athens in the search for swimming pools in the homes of professional people who claim they are living on only €35,000-€43,000 a year.

Thousands have been identified but tax records show only 300 have been declared. The swimming pool fraternity are also responding by using nets to cover the pools to avoid detection.

Cash provides a convenient escape route for lawyers, accountants and builders. The government has published the names of almost 70 doctors it says have cheated the taxman and some surgeons are said to be earning €900,000 a year and not declaring tax.

 

[bizzaro]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ion-from-Greeces-ruins-as-crisis-deepens.html

Revolution from Greece's ruins as crisis deepens
As Greeks face changing their way of life, rioters in Athens clash with police at the start of a very long, painful summer for the country.

For those assets which can't be shifted, other help is at hand. Vangelis Vasilopoulos is the chief engineer for a company which builds swimming pools in the wealthy northern suburbs of Athens, home to ship-owners and tycoons like Spyros Latsis, one of the richest men in the world, who hosts Prince Charles on his travels to Greece. Industrialist Theodore Angelopoulos and his wife Gianna, who led the organising committee for the Athens Olympic Games (only six years ago, when Greece was heralded a "little nation miracle") are installed there too, as is Mr Papandreou himself.

Mr Vasilopoulos says his company has been "inundated with calls" from residents of such elite residential neighbourhoods as to how to camouflage their swimming pools. At first blush, the requests seem bizarre.

In fact, they stem from the revelation that the Greek finance ministry is using Google Earth software to track down the owners of the pools, which tax inspectors consider an indicator of wealth, and which have often been built illegally.

"There are therefore two reasons to hide one's swimming pool," said a pool-owner who confessed guilt on both counts and, not surprisingly, asked not to be named.

Fortunately for him, however, there is a ingenious solution.

"The formula is simple," said Mr Vasilopoulos. "All you need is a green-coloured cover and then the pool cannot be spotted from above. But if the water is visible, or the netting or cover is blue, then you've had it".

Despite such inventiveness, even the most determined tax-dodger recognises that a new era is at hand. And for a country which prides itself on being the seat of European civilisation, a nation which claims to have exported the continent's values of democracy, the prospect of having a different way of life dictated to it is a devastating and humiliating reversal of fortune.

 

[Jib in lad]

60 Euro daily limit on ATM's.

 

[The Esk]

There's a significant proportion of tax evaders in greece who earn £30000 - £100000 a year.

This was based on a satellite survey of swimming pools compared to tax records

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/.../Greece-loses-15bn-a-year-to-tax-evasion.html

Greece loses €15bn a year to tax evasion
Greek taxmen are under pressure to make a bigger contribution to easing the country's financial pain by collecting more money. The government is providing encouragement by cutting their numbers, salaries and closing 130 tax offices.

There have been some imaginative attempts to widen the collection pool. Helicopters have been hovering over plush suburbs in northern Athens in the search for swimming pools in the homes of professional people who claim they are living on only €35,000-€43,000 a year.

Thousands have been identified but tax records show only 300 have been declared. The swimming pool fraternity are also responding by using nets to cover the pools to avoid detection.

Cash provides a convenient escape route for lawyers, accountants and builders. The government has published the names of almost 70 doctors it says have cheated the taxman and some surgeons are said to be earning €900,000 a year and not declaring tax.

Read what I wrote.

Your article is from 20 June 2011

 

[The Esk]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ion-from-Greeces-ruins-as-crisis-deepens.html

Revolution from Greece's ruins as crisis deepens
As Greeks face changing their way of life, rioters in Athens clash with police at the start of a very long, painful summer for the country.

For those assets which can't be shifted, other help is at hand. Vangelis Vasilopoulos is the chief engineer for a company which builds swimming pools in the wealthy northern suburbs of Athens, home to ship-owners and tycoons like Spyros Latsis, one of the richest men in the world, who hosts Prince Charles on his travels to Greece. Industrialist Theodore Angelopoulos and his wife Gianna, who led the organising committee for the Athens Olympic Games (only six years ago, when Greece was heralded a "little nation miracle") are installed there too, as is Mr Papandreou himself.

Mr Vasilopoulos says his company has been "inundated with calls" from residents of such elite residential neighbourhoods as to how to camouflage their swimming pools. At first blush, the requests seem bizarre.

In fact, they stem from the revelation that the Greek finance ministry is using Google Earth software to track down the owners of the pools, which tax inspectors consider an indicator of wealth, and which have often been built illegally.

"There are therefore two reasons to hide one's swimming pool," said a pool-owner who confessed guilt on both counts and, not surprisingly, asked not to be named.

Fortunately for him, however, there is a ingenious solution.

"The formula is simple," said Mr Vasilopoulos. "All you need is a green-coloured cover and then the pool cannot be spotted from above. But if the water is visible, or the netting or cover is blue, then you've had it".

Despite such inventiveness, even the most determined tax-dodger recognises that a new era is at hand. And for a country which prides itself on being the seat of European civilisation, a nation which claims to have exported the continent's values of democracy, the prospect of having a different way of life dictated to it is a devastating and humiliating reversal of fortune.

1st May 2010