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what greece would be fearing is a whole calamity on it's economy of which it would never recover.I think getting booted out of the club could well be eventual happening for greece..
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"Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
GOTSE DELCEV -
GeorgeOriginally posted by George S. View Post
Getting booted out is becoming a closer reality than they know!
On Delchev's sarcophagus you can read the following inscription: "We swear the future generations to bury these sacred bones in the capital of Independent Macedonia. August 1923 Illinden"Comment
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What Macedonia should do, is give greece back it's own medicine...
When greece goes bankrupt and struggling to survive which will happen shortly,
Macedonia should block it's borders...Only allow the true ethnic Macedonians who claim to be Macedonians (not grekomani) into Macedonia..
See how they like it...If EU ask why... Well Until greece recongise Macedonia...The Macedonians originates it, the Bulgarians imitate it and the Greeks exploit it!Comment
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Amen to that i hope they get the nastiest shock i doubt whether they will change."Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
GOTSE DELCEVComment
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On Delchev's sarcophagus you can read the following inscription: "We swear the future generations to bury these sacred bones in the capital of Independent Macedonia. August 1923 Illinden"Comment
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The Greeks caught lying again.
The Greeks caught lying again!
DiManno: Greeks are masters of the tax dodge
By Rosie DiManno, Columnist, ATHENS
In a country where stiffing the taxman is a national pastime, nailing scofflaws requires ingenuity and stealth.
So helicopters were deployed earlier this year to count backyard swimming pools in the Greek capital’s affluent northern suburbs.
The flyover, in conjunction with satellite imagery, produced a shocking aqua-census: 16,974 pools tucked behind high property walls. Yet only 324 households in those areas had ticked the box on their income tax forms admitting to pool ownership.
This was but one example of how upper middle-class Greek citizens hide their assets from the state to avoid levies.
“It had to be done to see how many Greeks had swimming pools,’’ explains Nikos Lekkas, tax-dodge investigator-in-chief as head of planning and programming controls for the internal revenue service.
Such brazen withholding of what’s due The Man goes a long way toward explaining why Greece is in such a fiscal mess. A nation that has fetishized tax-evasion, where residents proudly compare schemes for skirting the system, is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos has warned there will be no cash left in the government kitty to pay public salaries and pensions come November if its sugar-daddies — the European Union and International Monetary Fund — don’t pony up the next instalment of promised bailout aid. Bankruptcy will lead to default on government loans held by foreign banks. That would trigger a disastrous domino effect in the Eurozone, with the debt crisis cascading across the continent, already threatening to engulf Italy and Spain.
In truth, there’s tons of money in Greece, below the radar. But the state is up against a cunning adversary in its own people, who’ve become notoriously adept at frustrating all attempts to recover revenue. Both individuals and companies have learned to stash it good, whether in offshore accounts, domestic hidey-holes or by simple nondisclosure of assets. For decades, this phenomenon went unchallenged. Indeed, tax collectors were often in on the scam, accepting bribes to turn a blind eye.
It is with almost grudging admiration that Lekkas recounts the recent discovery of a rural tax Shangri-La, a tiny town called Kranidi in the Peloponnese with only a handful of tax inspectors in situ. Lekkas, to his astonishment, learned that a multitude of businesses including some of Greece’s largest companies had set up corporate headquarters in Kranidi, even if no actual office existed. By such means, their finances went undetected because nobody looked. “It was operating like a small Lichtenstein.’’
Various studies, most notably one by the Federation of Greek Industries in 2010, have estimated that one-third of taxes go unpaid. The government may be losing up to $30 billion a year to tax evasion, in a country with a colossal $400 billion debt, passing the hat around to its European allies.
“The pressure to collect money owed is great,’’ admits Lekkas. “But the party is over. This couldn’t be allowed to continue any longer. Political decisions have been made to end all these practices.’’
A new and detested property tax is being collected through electricity bills to thwart evasion. (Unionists have vowed not to deliver the bills.) A freeze on bank foreclosures against more than 55,000 delinquent borrowers who owe mortgage loans of up to $200,000 is about to expire after being twice extended. And lists have been compiled, released publicly, of chronic tax-ducking cheats in an unprecedented shaming campaign. Upwards of 6,000 businesses were identified as owing $41 billion in taxes and penalties, though critics pointed out that many of the companies had long ago gone bankrupt and disappeared. (Added embarrassment: Top debtor was the state-owned railroad, owing $1.3 billion.)
While these lists currently cover only companies, they will be extended to ordinary citizens once the government finds a legal way to circumvent privacy laws. In any event, individual names have already been leaked through the media. Prominent were doctors, lawyers, notaries, engineers and architects.
“We believe this shaming campaign is effective,’’ says Lekkas. “Greek society has changed. People are embarrassed to be identified, with everyone knowing where their tax evasion has led the country.’’
Authorities recently scrutinized the tax returns of 150 doctors with offices in the upscale Athens neighbourhood of Kolonaki. Half had reported an income of less than $40,000 and 34 doctors claimed less than $13,300 — which put them below the exemption line for paying any tax at all.
That infuriated a working class which has been hammered with a slew of new taxes, salary reductions and job furloughs. In a country characterized by rampant bribery and corruption, there is roiling resentment over minuscule taxes paid by the well-heeled, most acutely symbolized by Greece’s shipping magnates. Lekkas insists the tax department is going after them.
“We are catching people who have been part of the political establishment, even those who are close to the political leadership.’’
But this nation of 11 million has long operated within a parallel shadow economy of undocumented cash transaction — one-on-one exchanges without benefit of receipts, to keep business off the books. It’s estimated the shadow economy accounts for up to 30 per cent of gross domestic product, untaxed. The Greeks have a name for paying on the side: fakelaki — literally, little envelope.
There’s an attack plan for that, too, says Lekkas.
The government will attempt to revamp entrenched culture by forcing receipts to be issued for all transactions, even the purchase of a newspaper from a kiosk. The objective is to track every single expenditure, regardless of the bureaucratic nightmare that ensues from such a paper chase.
To that end, the tax crusade is going digital. On Oct. 3, the government began issuing hundreds of thousands of new swipe cards — the forokarta — that automatically transmit a record of every purchase to the finance ministry. That date is then inserted into each taxpayer’s personal tax file.
The response has been decidedly underwhelming. Most of the cards are still sitting in banks because the undertaking is on a volunteer basis. But it will become compulsory next year.
“Everything will come into a central server,” says Lekkas. “There will be no human interference in the system. That will put an end to bribery, even by tax collectors.”
As well, new laws coming into effect for 2012 will give tax inspectors access to all bank accounts. “We’ll find out which companies are sending their money offshore and who’s been forgetting, shall we say, to pay what they owe the state.”
The broader goal, Lekkas explains, is to convince ordinary Greeks that the state is serious about holding the major tax fraudsters to account because there is precious little faith left between the state and its citizenry.
“Offenders will go to jail,” he vows.
Asked how many high-rolling tax-dodgers have been thrown in the slammer thus far, Lekkas winces.
“Not one.”
Star columnist Rosie DiManno is in Greece looking at the nation’s debt crisis."Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
GOTSE DELCEVComment
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Papandreu invited to the G20 meeting in Cannes tonight and this picture has been published by the reuters;
The moment when everything was over for him.
The leader of a country called Greece, so-called the cradle of democracy, bows down to his master, asking for mercy like a delinquent child (!!!)Last edited by Onur; 11-03-2011, 07:39 PM.Comment
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If I was Papandreou, I would have reached over and grabbed a plate and then smashed it on the ground in a supreme act of defiance and bravado.
Then I would bend over and kiss Merkel's arse for forgiveness.
Then I would have swept up the mess and gone home .... with my tail between my legs.
Thank God I'm not Papandreou.Risto the Great
MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
"Holding my breath for the revolution."
Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.comComment
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OnurOriginally posted by Onur View PostPapandreu invited to the G20 meeting in Cannes tonight and this picture has been published by the reuters;
The moment when everything was over for him.
The leader of a country called Greece, so-called the cradle of democracy, bows down to his master, asking for mercy like a delinquent child (!!!)
A picture tells a thousand stories...
In this case it tells $350b stories!
On Delchev's sarcophagus you can read the following inscription: "We swear the future generations to bury these sacred bones in the capital of Independent Macedonia. August 1923 Illinden"Comment
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i agree with rtg & makedonche.I would like to add the greeks are nothing but calculating
thieves they stole all that money never intending to pay it back.THey really don't care so why should others care for themOnce a thief allways a thief."Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
GOTSE DELCEVComment
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What are you talking about Onur ? The same master your trying to obtain ? What's up with Erdogan crying to Merkel about being treated unfairly. Bwahhh....lolOriginally posted by Onur View PostPapandreu invited to the G20 meeting in Cannes tonight and this picture has been published by the reuters;
The moment when everything was over for him.
The leader of a country called Greece, so-called the cradle of democracy, bows down to his master, asking for mercy like a delinquent child (!!!)Comment
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I never said they were calculating!Risto the Great
MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
"Holding my breath for the revolution."
Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.comComment
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Calculating that it was easy money & not accounted for& that no one knows where it went.Into whose pockets.Surely it's not all squanderd.
He seems to be left out in the cold."Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
GOTSE DELCEVComment
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Yes, exactly.Originally posted by makedonche View PostOnur
A picture tells a thousand stories...
In this case it tells $350b stories!
I linked this picture to British MP Daniel Hannan in his blog and he immediately made a post about it
Btw, this picture is all over the Turkish media today. You know why? because this is the precise posture of people, when they were standing in the Ottoman court, front of the sultan. This was how people should have stood in the court, without raising their arms. There is a centuries old idiom to describe this posture in Turkish language as "el pençe divan". And today, there are comments in the media like, "Greeks found their new masters"
Last edited by Onur; 11-04-2011, 07:30 AM.Comment
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Regarding the referendum, it was not agreed within his own party let alone the EU. I wouldnt be so condescending Onur, espescially when your getting your own medicine from the Cypriots, Israeli's, Syrian's, Iranians and not the mention the Kurds. Your country threatened to accompany the flotilla with the Turkish Navy. Guess what, they are not coming this time. Seems like Isreal made you bow down.
Does that mean we like our PM ? No not at all so to use him to say he represents our people is for your own domestic consumption.Comment
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