The European finance ministers failed to approve the second bailout for Greece on Friday because the plan that was presented by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos failed to detail a further 325 million euros of spending cuts and reforms. No problem, we here at hellasfrappe have the perfect solution. Germany's Hotchief which operates Greece's international airport in Athens owns the Greek government over 500 million euros in Value Added Tax (VAT)! And what is worse, our so called German "allies" who are today deciding on our faith have actually refused to pay this tax for almost ten years now and they get very upset every time a government official asks them to do so!
As reported by the newspaper "To Paron" in its 12/6/2011 issue the German company has totally refused to pay its share of taxes since 2001.
It is complete insanity.
The Germans who criticize the Greek people for not paying their taxes, owe our country half a billion in taxes! On the other hand, they do not care that nearly one third of our population has dropped below the poverty line (according to the latest Eurostat statistics).
The article in To Paron had revealed that only for the years 2001, 2002 and 2003, the total VAT was at some 150,295,602. euros.
The figures that were released by the newspaper quoted an audit that was conducted under the mandate of 1/7-3-2005 by the Special Audit Division, headed by Mr. John Liakopoulos, while the auditors were Dimitra Filippa - Nicholaou and Anthonyios Perissios.
Quoting the audit, the State Legal Council said -in the last paragraph of its report- that the German company called had "no right to offset (deduct) Value Added Tax (VAT) which relates to expenses of paragraph 4 of Article 23 of Law 1642/86."
The Germans knew since March 20, 1997 that their reason for non-payment did not sufice says the article, and they also knew that they had to pay the Greek government the owed VAT but they continued to avoid payment arguing that expenses on luxuries, amusement and/or entertainment were exempted.
On April 30, 2010, the General Directorate of Taxation, with No. D147 1056436 Ex 2010, sent a note to the Special Audit Division (and Mr. Liakopoulos) reiterating that based on the State Legal Council's decision 162/1997 "there was no reason for issuing a new opinion", meaning that there was no exemption (not even for Hotchief from) paying the VAT.
As expected... the Germans tried to postpone the payment of VAT. Unfortunately for them, their application to postpone VAT payments was dismissed by the Administrative Court of Appeals and subsequently they were forced to pay some 25 percent of the VAT they owned the Greek state for the years 2001, 2002 and 2003 after fighting it off for ten years! Specifically, they paid an amount of some 37,573,900.53 euros on October 15, 2010! The remaining uncollected taxes, plus statutory penalties for the delays have yet to be collected.
Making a draft calculation, the article predicted that based on the revenues presented for the years 2001, 2002 and 2003, the total amount of VAT that the German company should owe for the periods 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, would sum to at least of 350,000,000 euros (without interest on late payment) and at some 500,000,000 euros if interest were to be included.
The trouble is... no one wants to even touch the subject because our political leaders here in Greece are dwarfs, and anti-hellenes and rather prefer stealing the bread from the mouths of our elderly instead of attempting to tax the super rich. So the case went to the Greek Parliament to be probed.
And here is where the real corruption (and total pillaging) begins.
On Friday (10/02/2012) a separate article from the antinews news site described the government's decision to renew the contract with the same company for 250.000.000-350.000.000 euros as being nothing else but criminal! According to experts the sum can only be looked at as being scandalous because in 2010 the airport had operational gains of 158.000.000 euros, while in 2009 they were summed at approximately 264.000.000 euros!
«Whoever signs the renewal of the concession (of the airport) at such a small price is actually giving the Germans a gift" underlined the analysts. They note that the Greek state can cash in on these dividends in just a couple of years of operating the airport. They also claim that in 2010, the airport had distributed a dividend of 755,000,000 euros to the Greek State and some 250,000,000 euros to private shareholders.
Greece's "Eleftherios Venizelos"airport and the possible renewal of its contract for a further 20 years was also thrown up for grabs by the Germans during their negotiations with the Chinese and France's HNA Vinci. You see... the Greek airport is considered "the buy of the century" and is presently eyed by prospective buyers because the revenues and profits received outperform Hotchief's respective airports in Budapest, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Tirana.
Both cases, are scandalous. As expected, the stories have more or less been buried by the main stream media, but thank the heavens they have not been ignored by the blog sphere and the web news world.
Conclusion: Clearly Germany has been given the right by the PASOK government to act as it wishes in Greece. They have been excused from paying taxes for far too long, and are now vying to sell our airport for pennies on the dollar. If Germany, or any other country operating in Greece, wants the citizens here to be on the up and up... they should set a better example.
References
To Paron Tis Kyriakis
Antinews
Posts
