GREECE: Greek Finance Chief Says Tax Evasion Collections Will Reduce Taxes

Digitization and stepped-up checks of tax returns is bringing more money into Greece’s state coffers and some of that will be used to reduce taxes, Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis.

He told the state’s Athens-Macedonia News Agency ANA-MPA that, “Our effort to deal with tax evasion is ongoing and already producing significant results,” but didn’t say if that will lessen a Value Added Tax (VAT) on food as high as 24 percent.

He earlier said that there wasn’t enough money to lessen the food tax despite record revenues from tourism coming in and as Greece is on a defense budget spending spree, acquiring fighter jets and warships.

“Thanks to the 11 initiatives we put in place, we have increased revenue collection … during the first half of the year, compared to the corresponding period last year, we had a 10.3 percent increase in VAT revenue,” he said.

He added that it was “due both to growth but also to reducing tax evasion, through initiatives such as the interconnection of POS terminals with cash registers,” although some professionals and service providers demand only cash.

Hatzidakis said another dozen measures are coming to further cut tax evasion tht no government has been able to seriously curb with Greeks among the most heavily-taxed in the European Union looking for ways not to pay.

“We estimate that, thanks to the effort we are making to curb tax evasion, by 2027 we will gradually have an increase in state revenues of the order of 2.5 billion euros ($2.71 billion) per year. This is a hands-on reply to the social injustice generated by tax evasion,” he added of the effort.