Image via WikipediaAlmost a year after Greece received a 110 Euros billion bailout to save it from bankruptcy, the country’s tax system is still having trouble collecting taxes. The folks at our circus style finance ministry, who on the one hand pardon debts from multi-millionaires, need more money from the people to patch up even more holes that we don't know about so they have started to turn their attention elsewhere.... and believe it or not folks they want to start collecting taxes from the dead!
Yes indeed... these natural-born buffoons at the Greek Ministry of Economy, who have nothing else to do all day but come up with some of the most ludicrous ways to collect money from the poor people of this nation, are now planning to go a step further and disrespect the dead... by taxing their assets.
When I read the report in the Wall Street Journal I thought it was a joke... but it is true. The Greek government actually believes that if they can’t collect revenues from the living, then how about raising some money from the dead?
When I read the report in the Wall Street Journal I thought it was a joke... but it is true. The Greek government actually believes that if they can’t collect revenues from the living, then how about raising some money from the dead?
Specifically, Greece’s government is wondering what happens to all those assets -houses, offices, bank accounts, stock holdings- that belonged to the deceased. and I ask who passes away without survivors?
One estimate, according to the report, says there could be 4 billion Euros of those unclaimed assets to be tapped. Other ludicrous estimates put the number as high as 20 billion Euros. The article went as far as saying that the sum would go a long way to closing Greece’s budget deficit.
A year since Greece began its draconian austerity program under European Union and International Monetary Fund oversight, the Greek tax authorities have yet to nab one big tax evader or recoup revenue from the seizure of assets. Instead they have the favored quick-fix (and revenue producing) solution of a tax amnesty over the messy business of actually prosecuting tax dodgers in court. The dead, by contrast, pose fewer problems.
I say... if they start collecting taxes from the rich in this country... then maybe the poor, who are already suffering the most, will be willing to be more prompt with their tax payments... but if they think that collecting taxes from the dead is a solution then really... they are nothing more than clowns in a three-ring circus. Shame on them... that is all I could say
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