Greece seems to be on the verge of collapse, economically at least. This post will be an attempt to record some of the issues. As on July 15th the country has recieved an additional bail out from the European Union. It seems one of the provisions of that plan is an increase in sales tax, making everything the Greek citizen buys more expensive. Many are rioting at this time. When there last year we saw the evidence of he last time the country rioted because of the recessions there. Graffiti was everywhere.
One issue may be the reluctance of the Greek citizen to pay taxes. Some say that harks back to a time when the Ottoman Turks ruled the country and to not pay taxes was seen as a form of patriotism; but hell that was way over 100 years ago. Now it is said the reluctance comes from the believ that the govt is corrupt.
On reported income earned by the underground economy is one issue, it could amount to 25 % of the gross domestic product. The IMF says that tax evasion is a big problem, "Tax debts in Greece equal about 90 % of annual tax revenue" that is the hightest among industrialized nations. A chart I found on a Google search indicated that from 2008 to 2010 tax collection % fell from just over 60 % to just over 50 %. This while other countires the figure is in the high 90's.
The bail out recently was for 85 billion euroes or 95 billion dollars. Unpaid taxes since 2009 were 76 billion euroes or 86 billion dollars.
Might be an on-going file.
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