Riot police landed on the island of Hydra (near Athens) at the weekend to calm raging locals who were protesting against the actions of the financial police, who were after all jkust doing their job! Later on the Greek government said that it would strictly punish citizens for tax evasion after the residents of Hydra attempted to harass the police after they arrested a restaurant owner who didn’t provide receipts to clients.
In statements, government spokesman, Simos Kedikoglou, said that tax evasion is a “scourge in Greek society” and that Greeks should end it, decisively and immediately. He said that the state should rebuff “tricksters” who try to weasel out of paying taxes. “At a time when citizens are feeling the heavy impact of the crisis and the actions needed to get the Greek economy into order, everyone will have to accept their practical and moral share of responsibility and not stand in the way of the law being implanted.”
New Democracy’s two coalition partners, PASOK and Democratic Left, both condemned the actions of Hydra residents who resisted the restaurateur’s arrest.
“The incident on Hydra has embarrassed the country internationally and allowed negative and unfair stereotypes to be about Greeks and Greece to be reproduced,” said PASOK in a statement. “These stereotypes lead to the significant progress made so far being ignored.”
“The clampdown on tax evasion will not happen by tax evaders voluntarily going to tax offices,” said Democratic Left’s Dimitris Chatzisokratis. “It has to happen through systematic checks by the financial crimes squad (SDOE) and the financial police.”
Surprise, surprise... the parliamentary opposition called the actions of authorities unnecessary and harmful and there were even statements saying that the scene of the riot police there "hurt" the image of Greece abroad. SYRIZA MP Theodoros Dritsas accused the government of hypocrisy over the Hydra incident, arguing that it was chasing small-time tax evaders while ignoring the major culprits. “This is not an effort to fight tax evasion, it is a silly and costly attempt at a show of force by the government and the state,” he said.
His view was not shared by fellow SYRIZ A MP Dimitris Papadimoulis, who said he found the behavior of the Hydra tax evader “odious.” “The bigger tax evasion is, the harsher the cuts to wages and pensions will be. Let’s be clear about that,” Papadimoulis said via his Twitter account.
And we ask... Harmful? Hypocrisy?
Friends, anyone who commits the crime, must pay the time and respecting the law does not stop during Greece's tourism season.
Average citizens are required and obligated to respect the law all the time and not when it suits them. AND EVERYONE HAS TO PAY THEIR SHARE IN TAXES... EVERYONE! All we ask that the government also "weed out" the tax evaders in its own ranks as well. There is no sense in the state implementing a measure to its full extent if it does not first set the example itself and the country's elite!
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