Greeks threatened with power cuts if they fail to pay property tax

[tama]

Announcing the measure in a desperate attempt to plug a budget black hole, the finance ministry warned that failure to pay the tax would automatically result in power supplies being disconnected.

"But when 70% of Greek households don't pay it what are they going to do, cut off the whole lot?" asked Giorgos Zisimos, a shopowner-cum-driver.

Rather than dampen Greece's anti-tax revolt, last week's landmark decision at an EU summit to write off 50% of Greece's debt mountain while giving Athens another €130bn (£114bn) in rescue funds, appears only to have bolstered resistance. Many fear the deal will mean more austerity on top of wage, pension and benefit cuts already enforced by the socialist administration in exchange for the foreign aid it needs to stave off default.

...

With thousands of electricity bills yet to be printed, militant unionists at the public power corporation, DEH, who recently took over the company's printing press, have threatened to step up action. "We are not going to do the government's dirty work," railed Nikos Fotopoulos who heads the union. "Electricity is a social commodity, not a means to collect taxes. We will do everything to ensure that unemployed people, poor people do not have their electricity cut."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/30/greeks-threatened-with-power-cuts

[dkf]

1. Yikes.

"On Friday, anger reached boiling point as anti-austerity protesters, some carrying "Merkel = Hitler" banners, others burning German flags, disrupted national parades commemorating Greece's entry into the second world war."

[PoliticAverse]

2. Grece, tettering on the brink of being a failed state... n/t

[tama]

3. The war in Athens, Greece

http://vimeo.com/31251664

[Marazinia]

4. I don't think that's going to work out so well for them

Given your last paragraph, it looks like if everyone doesn't have power, no one will. I'm pretty sure not every wealthy Greek has sufficient generators for that sort of emergency.

[tama]

6. The last paragraph

means what it says. The workers refuse to follow the governments orders to hurt their fellow citizens by denying them access to vital necessity.

[Marazinia]

57. Good

It's a template for what workers in essential jobs may have to do here.

[Katashi_itto]

8. Thus will not end well for the Govt

[tama]

11. Fuck the Govt

People unite and work together.

[PoliticAverse]

16. Well uniting and working together is what government is suppose to be...

after all people elected them in the 'birthplace of democracy'.

[girl gone mad]

19. The people elected leaders to represent their interests ahead of the demands of..

international banking cartels.

Hard default is coming. Greeks will not choose debt slavery.

[PoliticAverse]

22. I agree default should happen. Why should German taxpayers bail out banks ? n/t

[girl gone mad]

29. They are mostly German, French and American banks.

It would make more sense to ask the Germans bail them out than to force the Greeks into serfdom.

Greece got a bad deal at Maastricht. No reason they should try to hold it together for the Germans.

[tama]

25. Perhaps "supposed to be",

but in reality it's divide and conquer, rob and oppress the 99% for the benefit of the top 1%. Government as hierarchical power pyramid is identical to class society and class war.

And FIY Athenian democracy was not a representative electorial system, it was direct and participatory democracy, "representatives" when necessary selected by lot, not by voting in elections. Voting for representatives was psychopathic Roman invention.

[PoliticAverse]

27. I wish the Greek people luck solving their problems. Declare national bankruptcy...

(that is default on their external debt) and start again.

[tama]

32. It's not national issue

what we are dealing with is global bankruptcy of capitalist Ponzi scheme.

[PoliticAverse]

35. Greece's problems are their own making. If they had collected sufficient taxes...

to pay for what they spent there would be no problem.
And only the Greek electorate can fix this.

People (in most all countries) vote for politicians that keep spending more than
they are willing to pay for. And it is inevitable that the bill someday become due.

You have a sovereign nation, elect politicians that fix the problem.

[girl gone mad]

37. Your post is based in nonsense, not reality.

Greece's tax rates and revenue to GDP have been stable for decades.

The Greek crisis was triggered by the global financial collapse, not by insufficient tax collection.

[PoliticAverse]

41. We're not talking about tax/rates and revenues alone...

we're talking spending and debt.

[girl gone mad]

43. You said that the problem was insufficient taxation..

which is completely delusional.

No country could collect sufficient revenue in the midst of an economic collapse.

[PoliticAverse]

46. The debt wasn't just built up during the bad economic times...

that just put Greece over the edge. It was insufficient tax collection in the good times
that led to the huge debt. Of course, as you point out, if they had their own currency and
their debt was denominated in that currency it wouldn't be a problem to pay it off.

[tama]

38. What part of

"It's a global ponzi scheme, stupid", you don't get?

You can blame the victims and live in denial for a while, but reality hits back. Also in US.

[PoliticAverse]

40. It's certainly stupid to think people will lend you money without limit...

and that the day will never come when they say 'no', and the choice is to be a debt slave or default.

The US certainly has its share of those that think they can spend and borrow forever without paying taxes to
cover the spending and borrowing, but we are not quite at the level of Greece yet.

[girl gone mad]

42. The US has a sovereign currency.

We do not need to borrow or tax in order to spend. We will never be in the position Greece is in now.

[tama]

47. Dream on

As long as the system of banks and capitalistic profit being more important than people prevails, everything is getting robbed and thrown into the black hole of credit bubble. In 2008 when the system collapsed, nation states build new national credit bubbles to prevent whole global banking system collapsing, deciding to go down with the banks and acting against people, instead of being part of the solution and with the people.

Which part of "It's a global Ponzi scheme, stupid" YOU don't understand? Elites are doing their damnest to contain the collapse of the Ponzi scheme and prevent it from spreading now from small countries to big countries, but of course they can't. They can only post-pone the inevitable for a while and make the problems worse.

[tama]

44. Yes it is stupid

and it is stupid to give bad loans - greed is stupid, period.

And what is really stupid is money system based on debt and interest and continuous growth of debt.

We are all born into and made part of this stupidity, but that does not mean we must stay stupid forever. We can evolve.

rEvolution! :)

[PoliticAverse]

45. I agree. Debt based money is a bad system. I wish the Greek people luck in

'evolving' and starting fresh.

[Marazinia]

58. If this works

Maybe we can adapt it for use in America.

[DCBob]

5. Why dont Greek people pay their taxes??

I dont get it.

[tama]

7. It's an extra tax

trying to collect money from ordinary home-owners to keep on paying interests to the black hole of bankster greed and bying more tear gas - not for health care, education etc. It's robbery, pure and simple.

[DCBob]

9. I thought it was a Greek tradition not to pay taxes that goes back for decades..

long before this crisis began.

[tama]

12. Different issue

It's also a long tradition of corporations and rich people parasite classes not paying any taxes while enjoying corporate socialism and robbing the fruits of nature and labor.

[DCBob]

14. so you are ok with citizens not paying taxes??

thats how rightwingers think.

[girl gone mad]

17. Greek tax revenues are basically unchanged over the last decade.

No clue what data you're looking at.

[DCBob]

21. read this..

More than 5 million Greeks did not pay income taxes for 2008, according to public documents released by the struggling nation's finance ministry.

More than six in 10 taxpayers earn less than 12,000 euros per year and are not required to pay income taxes under the Greek tax system, the press office of the Greek Ministry of Finance said Thursday.

However, there is wide speculation that many Greeks are not accurately reporting their income.

Most workers and professionals earned more than 12,000 euros in salary in 2008, according to the data provided by the Finance Ministry this month. The average salaried income was 19,234 euros for taxpayers and professionals earned 29,569 euros on average for the year. Farmers, ranchers and fisherman made 11,500 euros per year on average, but those workers only accounted for 390,000 people in the workforce.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-31/world/greece.taxes_1_income-taxes-greek-press-tax-evasion?_s=PM:WORLD

[girl gone mad]

23. That doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand.

The crisis was certainly not caused by a drop in tax revenue.

Like I said, Greek revenues have remain unchanged.

[PoliticAverse]

26. ANd they're still a lot less than government spending... which the government has borrowed....

to make up for. And now the creditors (for what ever reason) don't want to lend any more...

[girl gone mad]

33. Yes, it's a shame that they gave up currency sovereignty.

No nation should ever agree to that type of madness.

[DCBob]

28. I think it does.. a drop in tax revenue certainly didnt help matters.

[girl gone mad]

31. There was no drop in revenue.

[DCBob]

34. If everone paid their fair share in taxes wouldnt they have higher tax revenues?

and their debt would be less.. right?

[girl gone mad]

39. No.

If Greeks paid more taxes right now, foreign banks would get fatter but the Greek economy would shrink. The debt to GDP ratio would be no better. They are dealing with a systemic failure as a result of poorly structured monetary union.

[DCBob]

48. If they had paid their taxes during the past few decades then their debt would have been smaller..

its common sense math.

[girl gone mad]

59. And yet they are paying higher taxes now and the debt has only grown.

Basic math is not your strong suit.

[Nye Bevan]

54. Sorry, I'm looking at the red bars on your graph, and your claim that "there was no drop in revenue"

It looks pretty clear in the graph that there *was* a drop in revenue. What am I missing here?

[girl gone mad]

64. The move is clearly insignificant.

Were declining revenues (i.e. tax avoidance as per the trolls around here) the cause of the debt crisis, one should see a notable drop, not a marginal dip.

You'll have to find some other scapegoat to pin the financial malfeasance on.

[tama]

30. I'm not OK

with violent parasite oppressors and power hungry psychopaths taxing peaceful independent people who take care of themselves and each other. That is how anarchists think, how indigenous peoples feel.

Rightwingers you mean just want to tax aka rob other people.

[dipsydoodle]

36. You're correct.

This may be the first time their government has reciprocated by introducing taxes other than income tax to help compensate for non payment of the latter. They increased VAT too - both forms of tax being unavoidalbe in terms of payment.

[PoliticAverse]

10. Why should they pay taxes when they could just charge everything up on the national credit card ?

[tama]

13. Why should you pay taxes

for military imperialism, violent govt oppression in home land, destrying the environment, political corruption etc.?

And hows the US national credit card lately, btw?

[PoliticAverse]

18. US credit card is about 62% of GDP, still behind Greece (about 116%)

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_public_debt

[girl gone mad]

15. What, exactly, are they charging on the "national credit card"?

[PoliticAverse]

20. Their budget deficit... n/t

[girl gone mad]

24. Be specific.

[blindpig]

49. PASOK is toast.

They have chosen to be on the side of international finance, the Greek people will dispose of them.

[tama]

50. It's usually the "good guys"

that screw us the most. Papandreou the 3rd had a good reputation and was generally considered a good guy. Not unlike Clinton, Obama, Blair etc. that do most of the dirty work of neoliberalism. If it was the "bad guys" of right wing parties, they would face much more opposition and stronger and more decisive revolts.

The old Good cop - bad cop treatment. Beware the good cops, they fuck you up royally while the bad cops just make you angry and scared!

[blindpig]

53. That's what ya get with 'social democrats'.....

They are invariably assimilated, the result of lack of theory and poor discipline.

[Nye Bevan]

51. The Greeks just hate paying taxes.

ATHENS — In the wealthy, northern suburbs of this city, where summer temperatures often hit the high 90s, just 324 residents checked the box on their tax returns admitting that they owned pools.

So tax investigators studied satellite photos of the area — a sprawling collection of expensive villas tucked behind tall gates — and came back with a decidedly different number: 16,974 pools.

That kind of wholesale lying about assets, and other eye-popping cases that are surfacing in the news media here, points to the staggering breadth of tax dodging that has long been a way of life here.

Such evasion has played a significant role in Greece’s debt crisis, and as the country struggles to get its financial house in order, it is going after tax cheats as never before.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html

[DCBob]

52. +1

This is a big part of the problem but many refuse to admit it.

[girl gone mad]

63. The same anecdotes could be told about wealthy Germans, Brits, Americans.

Tax avoidance is not unique to Greece, nor is it a new phenomenon. Tax avoidance did not cause or contribute to the crisis in any significant way.

[Harmony Blue]

55. Why do people buy the propaganda

that Greeks tax evade, don't work hard, or employ a lot of government workers?

Based on their European counterparts, the data clearly shows a different picture. This is a case where misinformation is winning out against information.

Why should the Greek people suffer because Goldman Sachs conspired with the Greek government to hide the debt? Why do not the banks go after Goldman Sachs for putting them in this bind?

[Nye Bevan]

56. Because they do evade their taxes.

To get more attentive care in the country’s national health system, Greeks routinely pay doctors cash on the side, a practice known as “fakelaki,” Greek for little envelope. And bribing government officials to grease the wheels of bureaucracy is so standard that people know the rates. They say, for instance, that 300 euros, about $400, will get you an emission inspection sticker.

Some of the most aggressive tax evaders, experts say, are the self-employed, a huge pool of people in this country of small businesses. It includes not just taxi drivers, restaurant owners and electricians, but engineers, architects, lawyers and doctors.

The cheating is often quite bold. When tax authorities recently surveyed the returns of 150 doctors with offices in the trendy Athens neighborhood of Kolonaki, where Prada and Chanel stores can be found, more than half had claimed an income of less than $40,000. Thirty-four of them claimed less than $13,300, a figure that exempted them from paying any taxes at all.

Such incomes defy belief, said Ilias Plaskovitis, the general secretary of the Finance Ministry, who has been in charge of revamping the country’s tax laws. “You need more than that to pay your rent in that neighborhood,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html

[Fumesucker]

62. Interesting how it's pinned on the middle class and the tradesmen...

No mention of the truly wealthy.

After the garbage I've seen come out of the Times and the Wa Post too over the last decade or so I don't believe a thing they say until independently verified.

[Rex]

61. The only people that do are trolls.

I mean, that is what Foxnews always says...so isn't it funny when a 'DUer' parrots them word for word?

[Rex]

60. Welcome to WWIII.

Looks like the revolution won't be televised, but will happen either way.