Ok let's look at your logic - they have had 5 years of what amounts to a depression and less and less revenues coming into the government. What would you want them to do with the extra taxes that were collected - pay the creditors?
Gee, it's hardly realistic to think Tsipras could collect enough of those taxes, and redistribute it the way he would like to, to make a real difference to the many suffering so much now, all in 6 months, doncha think? .. he's had a bit on his plate after all ..
Peg, i'm sure he has taken some action toward collecting more taxes than previous administrations have .. lemme see .. oh .. ok ..
Syriza’s most radical plan for Greece? Collect taxes
Greek politician Akis Tsohatzopoulos was convicted of corruption charges in 2013, but he's just the tip of the iceberg. (Reuters/Yorgos Karahalis)
.. birdie call .. Alexis Tsipras @tsipras_eu We will move to implement the greatest institutional reform ever in the country, aiming to declare war against corruption and tax inequality 5:34 AM - 9 Feb 2015
Included in the bank leak is the famous “Lagarde list” of 2,000 Greek HSBC clients with $2.6 billion deposited in Swiss banks, which was sent to Greece in 2010 by IMF chief Christine Lagarde in an effort to spur the country’s tax collectors to garner more revenue. Unlike other cash-strapped countries that have begun pushing back on international tax avoidance, Greece sat on the list, doing nothing, even as its government at the time launched a program that included reductions in spending and public-sector jobs.
Despite ongoing scandal, little has changed from a policy point of view. Last year’s IMF review .. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=41614.0 .. of Greece’s progress under its bailout concluded that “while there are finally signs of improvement in tax administration, progress still disappoints.” Overdue tax collection fell €382 million ($433 million) short of its target in 2013. Greece’s inability to levy and collect tax represents a “critical risk” to the country’s compliance with its creditors’ conditions, the IMF said. Tsipras has made pointed references to foot-dragging on the Lagarde list and other tax investigations:
.. birdie back .. Alexis Tsipras @tsipras_eu A special MinFin task force will investigate large tax evasion in the Liechtenstein, Lagarde & other money laundering lists 5:51 AM - 9 Feb 2015
Whether Syriza can actually deliver on its tax promises remains to be seen. But it can hardly do worse than its predecessors. The center-right government it ousted made little progress compared with the center-left administration it replaced in 2012, according to Harry Theoharis, who was appointed to head a streamlined new Greek tax collection agency in 2013. Soon, his attempts to garner revenue from large companies and wealthy individuals were opposed by his own party, leading to his resignation .. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/11381653/Death-threats-forced-me-to-quit-my-job-says-Greeces-top-tax-man.html :
-- Mr Theoharis said that the government of Antonis Samaras, the leader of the conservative New Democracy party, started pushing him to adopt what he diplomatically calls “a more populist stance”. In practice, that meant going easy on politically sensitive targets such as friends and benefactors of the party. “It was a case of ‘don’t do this, don’t do that’,” he said. --
-- It might be far more accurate to posit a conflict between the business and financial elite on one side (along with EU officials) and workers and middle class savers on the other. This is a conflict among economic groups, in other words, and not a national conflict, although it is increasingly hard to prevent it from becoming a national conflict. --
Of course, nobody enjoys a tax audit. But what Syriza voters said, in part, was that the time to tighten the country’s lax tax administration is long overdue—the benefits to all outweigh the costs to some. In his book about the Greek financial crisis .. http://portobellobooks.com/the-13th-labour-of-hercules , journalist Yannis Palaiologos describes taxation as something that the “modern Greek state has never quite mastered in almost two centuries of existence.” The roots of this dysfunction run deep:
-- Tax evasion epitomizes the Greek Disease. It is misleading to call it a deviant practice. It is a social phenomenon—historically rooted, rampant, and widely accepted as the way of doing business. --
If the EU and IMF want a blank slate in Greece, wiping away the culture of corruption that plagues its politics and the array of obstacles that stand in way of private-sector growth, they may have a better local partner than they realize. While Syriza’s public-sector reform agenda remains too clouded for its creditors’ liking, there is a case to be made for outsiders giving a bit more appreciation for the first Greek government in years that might actually try to collect the taxes it is owed.
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