AN INSPECTION team representing Greece’s so-called troika of international lenders resumes its mission in Athens today, amid widespread public confusion surrounding the latest tax-collecting measures recently announced by the Greek government.
The payment of Greece’s next tranche of its bailout loan, the sixth, depends on the outcome of an assessment which will be undertaken by officials from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank.
The troika will inspect Athens’s budget cut and revenue-raising proposals, which suffered a setback yesterday when finance minister Evangelos Venizelos was forced, less than 24 hours after he announced them, to postpone increases in the amount of VAT receipts taxpayers would have to collect in order to qualify for a tax-free allowance.
Frustrated Greek taxpayers complained that the measure, coming so late in the year, would be impossible to achieve and would penalise savers.
The receipt rules, introduced last year in an attempt to combat widespread tax evasion, required taxpayers to submit receipts to the value of a quarter of their gross income with their tax return, or face penalties.
The changes proposed by Mr Venizelos would have required someone earning €60,000 per annum to produce receipts worth half that.
That resulted in an outcry from the public, already reeling from the introduction of a new income levy and unpopular blanket property tax.
Among those who said they would have difficulty in paying the new property tax was one the country’s two deputy prime ministers.
“I have to pay €7,500 under this property tax, but I don’t have this money,” Theodoros Pangolos told presenters in a live studio interview yesterday.
Mr Pangalos, a veteran Pasok politician and former foreign minister, added that he would have to sell one of his 59 real-estate properties to raise the money.
When asked what he would do if he couldn’t find a buyer, Mr Pangalos, whose declared income in 2010 was more than €640,000, answered that his fellow deputy prime minister, Mr Venizelos, “can come and arrest me”.
Yesterday commuter disruption returned to the streets of the Greek capital as employees in all forms of public transport staged a 24-hour strike.
The country’s taxi drivers also stopped work.
The taxi drivers, who oppose the government’s attempts to deregulate the industry, are set to continue their strike today amid signs of increasing militancy on their part.
The leader of the Athens taxi union told a protest meeting yesterday that his colleagues would fight “to the bitter end” in order to foil the government’s liberalisation plans, adding that their demands were “non-negotiable”.
Transport unions will decide tomorrow whether or not to continue their protests on Friday.