guardian.co.uk,
Helena Smith in Athens, Monday 23 January 2012
Greek government has moved fast to prosecute tax evaders for the first time. Photograph Katerina Mavrona/EPA |
Prospects
of Greece securing a debt deal that might save the eurozone from further
turmoil was eclipsed on Monday, by the news that some of the nation's leading
celebrities have been hoodwinking the taxman for years.
As the
world frets over the country's increasingly unmanageable debt burden, the
finance ministry has revealed that 4,151 Greeks owe €14.9bn (£12.4bn) to the
state – more than the €14.5bn bond repayment Athens has to make in March.
The list
includes the singer Tolis Voskopoulos, a former basketball star, Michael
Misounof and high-profile entrepreneurs, many of them behind bars. Fifteen
offenders owed more than €100m, each, in back taxes with one man, an accountant
serving several life sentences, owing €952m.
Greece is
estimated to have lost about €60bn in unpaid taxes according to an EU report
released in November. The nearly €15bn owed by those named and shamed on Monday
is the equivalent of 0.7% of the country's gross economic output. The dodgers
had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide earnings, often stashing their money
in offshore accounts.
Tax evasion
is seen as the single biggest drain on revenues with EU and IMF officials
blaming the country's missed budget targets on this dodge.
With
ordinary citizens hard hit by rising inflation, deepening recession and
repeated wage and pension cuts, Athens' ten-week-old interim government has
moved speedily to prosecute tax evaders with culprits being arrested and
charged for the first time. "It is no longer easy to be a tax evader in
Greece," said George Pagoulatos, a senior adviser to prime minister Lucas
Papademos.
The
government had to change privacy laws before publishing the list compiled in
November.
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