greece riot over debt crisis....

[Nointhemood]

police are trying to stop protesters from storming parliament.

I heard that one hospital had something like 20 gardeners on the books but they didn't have any gardens. Good for women though, we only have to work for 15 years, then we can retire with a pretty good pension. Suits me.

Saw a French MEP who, quite rightly, told the European Parliament that France and Germany had been trying to restructure their pension schemes for years, yet they expect the Greeks to do it in 3 months. Fair comment.

Apparently single and divorced women can also claim their father's pension after he dies.

MeltedFlumps, you're very right (in fact, that's the biggest issue) that the responsibility for the crisis needs to be spread more equitably across Greek society. Unfortunately, I'm not that optimistic. Those who routinely tax evade are those who (as you say) are probably transferring their money to Swiss / English / French banks as we now speak, or are buying property in other countries. Also: the corruption & tax evasion in Greece is so very very widespread that, to any Greek, it feels a mammoth task to try to tackle it (and who's going to do it, by the way, when the tax collectors themselves are THE most corrupt)... Which is why the burden initially will fall to those who can't really tax evade for serious amounts, those who have transparent salaries.

Sigh

I think the taxation system can be tackled but not quickly. As ever, it is the middle income earners who will be hit - those in open regular employment whose income can be easily identified and taxed. That will then logically fan out and gradually more people will be caught up and fairly taxed. As you say Maria it means this won't be a fair spread of people paying tax though.

In the UK people may try and fiddle, but they have to try quite hard, and we all know that the taxman is something to be feared - in Greece the taxman is someone who is easily bought off.

However, the Greek government has been asking for help in setting up such a system for years from the European partners and no help has been offered - they are being mocked for a ridiculous state of affairs but not helped to try and put it right.

But then the massive factor they also need to sort out is that taxation is not just about income, what about capital gains? ...... but there is no land registry, so how do you work out who is making these gains .... and why is thatof course? because half of the land in Greece is owned by the church, and which government is going to be strong enough to start taxing the church?

For these reasons, I am also not very optimistic that we will see much progress in the near future. The whole culture needs to be changed and that is very hard.

(A little example which sums things up nicely: When my grandfather died 10 years ago, my father and aunts sorted out his estate. They were hit with a demand for inheritance tax 9.5 years later, and then eventually agreed to pay 10% of the original demand, after negotiating with the local tax office. Says it all really. Oh, and many friends of my dad's still take the mickey out of him for paying anything at all - they say he is a complete chump for not ignoring the tax demand completely. It's unbelievable.)