Posted on 02/02/2010 1:58:29 AM PST by Cheap_Hessian
ATHENS (Reuters) - Cafes, shops and taxis around Athens are handing out receipts by the thousands to customers frantically stuffing their pockets with proof of payment for anything from a glass of ouzo to a family Sunday lunch.
Business has not suddenly turned good in recession-hit Greece, but people are clamouring for receipts after the government announced in December they would be required to claim a standard income tax-free allowance that was previously granted automatically.
"People demand receipts like never before," said Yannis Lazos, 40, who runs a clothes shop in central Athens. "I can see it in their eyes, they think: 'I want my money back, I want to be taxed less'. These are difficult days, it's the crisis."
Under pressure from bond markets, rating agencies and the European Union to get its fiscal house in order, the government hopes the receipt collection plan will help it fight endemic tax evasion as it scrambles for resources to plug a huge budget gap.
The aim is to use ordinary citizens to flush out Greece's tentacular black economy, estimated to amount to at least a third of the official, 250 billion euro (218 million pounds) gross domestic product, by making them demand legal proof of payment.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
“recession-hit Greece” = socialist/democrat/liberal-hit Greece
Hiring enough auditors to go through all that crap paper should create enough jobs to get them out of their fiscal crisis. /s/
Greeks and rules don’t usually get along with each other. New government regulations in that country will be like herding cats.
Does anyone understand this? At one point they say the tax implications have to do with INCOME. But collecting receipts has to do with expenses.
It’s all Greek to me!
What the he*l is going on over there? They have the Olympics....the place now is very European, and one of the most beautiful places on earth....The country’s tourism should be a cash cow....
They priced themselves out of the tourist market with the overvalued euro.
And of course bubbles expanded all over the Greek economy due to the low interest rate set by the ECB and the easy gov’t loans thought to be guaranteed by the rich euro-countries, mainly Germany.
Coming to your town and mine....
We are going to morph ourselves right into Brazil, and don’t mean the country, but the movie.
I went over there a few years ago....It was like Germany owned everything. The hotel I stayed at on Santorini had the check out rules on the back of the room door in German and English. No Greek.
I also noticed no Greek music in the tavernas or cabs....
Very clean...and European and not the dinginess and smell and car honking of when it was deeply third world...
IMO that is...
That might also happen here before long, if things keep getting slower. But it wouldn’t stop an underground economy, if one were to materialize. It would slow most other activities down, though.
True. Greeks and rules don’t usually get along with each other, but I think the expression is “like herding ants.”
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