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Greece Proposes To Become A Tax-Collecting Police State: Will "Wire" Tourists And Unleash Them As "Tax Inspectors"
There were three notable items in the follow up, 11-page letter sent by Yanis Varoufakis earlier today to the Eurogroup, and its president "Jeroen."
But first, by way of background, here is what happened as recapped by Reuters.
Earlier today Greece sent an augmented list of proposed reforms on Friday (see the 11 page letter attached below) but EU officials said several more steps were required before any release of aid funds. In the Yanis Varoufakis outlined plans to fight tax evasion, activate a "fiscal council" to generate budget savings and update licensing of gaming and lotteries to boost state revenues. All noble ideas, and all set to crash and burn since it has all been tried and failed in the country in which paying taxes is considered theft (by the government).
However, the expanded list of reforms arrived too late for deputy finance ministers and European Commission experts who met on Thursday to scrutinise it before a regular meeting of finance ministers of the currency area next Monday. "Whatever proposals emerge (from Varoufakis), they can't be seen in isolation," said a senior EU official, who declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of the talks. "They have to been seen in the overall context of all policy measures ... There is no connection with the disbursements."
One key condition for Greece to receive any more euro zone money is for Athens to reach an agreement with its three international creditors - the euro zone, the ECB and the IMF - on the implementation of reforms agreed by the previous government. Such talks have not even begun yet.
This is a problem because as we reported hours ago, following its €310 payment to the IMF, Greece now literally has no money left, and absent some last ditch generosity from the Troika (pardon the Institutions, more on the latest Greek fetish of renaming things shortly), the next €350MM payment to the IMF due on March 13 will simply not be made (let alone the €580MM payment on March 16 and the €350MM payment on March 20).
* * *
Which brings us to the topic of this post - the Varoufakis letter (pdf courtesy of the FT).
First, we were delighted to see that as we cautioned in About The Authorship Of The Infamous "Greek Reforms" Memo, when we said that "for anyone who is involved in the creation, drafting, and production of mission-critical documents, whose metadata can have huge downstream consequences, the best solution is to simply read the brief manual on Redaction of Confidential Information in Electronic Documents which nobody ever does at least not before they hint save, print or send." Varoufakis appears to have done just that, and after the fiasco involving the authorship of the the first "Greek" letter to the Eurogroup, all the associated PDF metadata has been thoroughly scrubbed. Good job.
Second, among the various section headings, including:
- 1st Reform: FISCAL COUNCIL: Activating the Fiscal Council, achieving economices, and expanding its remit
- 2nd Reform: BUDGET PREPARATION & ORGANIC BUDGET LAW
- 3rd Reform: 'ONLOOKERS' VAT EVASION-FIGHTING SCHEME: Large numbers of causal (sic) "onlookers" to assist in the fight against VAT evasion
- 4th Reform: TAX ARREAS: Improving existing legislation
- 5th Reform: Immediate Public Revenue accrual through Online Gaming Services
- 6th Reform - ANTI-BUREAUCRACY, SELF-INFORMING PUBLIC SECTOR SCHEME
- 7th Reform - Provisions for the adoption of immediate measures to face the humanitarian crisis
There were a few notable findings, among which the estimation, cited by Varoufakis, that of the €76 billion in total tax arrears, only €8.9 billion are collectable; that Greece is considering tapping online/e-gambling as a "significant untapped public revenue opportunity) which could provide public revenue well "in excess of €500 million per annum"... however Greece admits it will require technical assistance "for monitoring internet-based gambling", and so on, the most interest proposal was the following.
Meet wired tourist part-time tax inspectors!
And here comes the Greek tax collecting police state, in which "large numbers of non-professional inspectors are hired to pose on behalf of the tax authorities, while 'wired' for sound and video... We envisage that the recruits will come from all walks of life (e.g. students, housekeepers, even tourist in popular areas ripse with tax evasion) who will be paid hourly and who will be hard to detect by offending tax dodgers."
And yes, while one can joke all day about wired tourists collecting hourly pay from the Greek government while moonlighting on behalf of the Greek tax collector agency (a process that will actually end up costing far more than collecting especially since the collectors have no incentive to actually catch anyone but to merely be paid as long as possible on an "hourly" basis), the real issue here is that Greece is effectively hoping to become a tax-collecting Police state: in which "the news that thousands of casual "onlookers" are everywhere, bearing audio and video recording equipment on behalf of the tax authorities, has the capacity to shift attitudes very quickly, spreading a sense of justice across society and engendering a new tax compliance culture - especially if combined with the appropriate communication of the simple message that the time has come for everyone to share the burden of public services and goods."
Actually, the only attitude it will shift is one toward civil war, as millions of Greeks, long used to generations of free-riding, are suddenly forced by the Greek Tax-collector police state to change their behavior, to which they will respond appropriately.
Ain't gonna happen, especially when one considers what happens to the tax-collector hopefuls once of them is captured and beaten to an inch of his life or just an inch further.
In fact, it would be more realistic if Greece asked to outsource all public and private communication to the NSA and then subcontract it to find who the tax evaders are. Especially since the NSA already knows all the perpetrators.
Of course, should this plan pass, the Varoufakis government has at most a few days before it is swept from power, most likely violently.
* * *
Which brings us to the third point, and the one which ties everything together. Because while Greece knows all too well that none of the proposed reforms are feasible, what it can do is ask for more money.
And it has, as can be seen below, only as Varoufakis calls it, don't call it a third bailout and instead use "Contract for Recovery and Growth of the Greek economy."
Which nicely rounds out everything the new government has achieved. Well, speaking loosely, because so far, all the Tsipras government has achieved is merely continue the much hated austerity policies enacted by Samaras and his predecessors, but it has managed to change a few terms around:
- instead of "Troika" it is now "Institutions"
- instead of "Liquidity" it is now "Cash Flow"
- and instead of "Third Bailout" it is now "Contract for Recovery and Growth of the Greek economy."
As for the conditions that the Troika, oops, Institutions, will impose in order to grant Greece the "Contract for Recovery and Growth of the Greek economy", well... hopefully you don't really need that left kidney.
If the Greek people are naive enough to fall for this, and believe this is how the radical-left government plans on "implementing" its campaign promises, then more power to them, if not to their pensions: those are about to be paid to the IMF so the IMF can then proceed to fund the US puppet regime in Kiev.
* * *
Full Vaourfakis letter below.
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YV sure talks a big game, don't he.
Perhaps if no one wants to pay for your public goods and services, it's because they're overpriced for what they deliver.
It's an ask at gun point where no bids exist.
The Greeks are admitting to a negative stereotype, lmfao! Invite non-professional secret police to be your tax collectors eyes and ears, what could go wrong?
OMG, Reform #5: "Accrual of revenue through online gaming." http://www.watch-tvseries.net/series32/SOUTH-PARK/season-18-episode-06-F...
Best South Park episode ever.
if you see something, say something
Syriza - hahaha!!! Typical LEFTISTS - watch what they DO - not what they SAY
Syriza - hahaha!!! Typical POLITICIANS - watch what they DO - not what they SAY. FIFY ;-)
right - lets just say "oligarch's henchmen"
I think the time has come to face the shitty reality that there can be NO HOPE & CHANGE. Obama proved it, the PQ (here in Quebec) proved it, Syriza is certainly proving it.
Looks like Patriots (of all countries) and nail guns are the true path to any hope of real change.
I feel sorry for you Greeks...Shout out to the other PIIGS....take note bitchez, your turn is coming...choose with your eyes wide open !
Thats alot of dead tourons.
That's nice but 95% of the uncollected taxes is owed by only 11% of the population. And how about that "offshore" money.
"Lots of in's and out's " ~ the Dude
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The Greeks will begin to hate this government, too.
They will vote in the New Dawn Nazi Party who will advocate defalting on the debt to punish the EU.
this kind of tax collection will be coming to a country you're living in, soon. I said to my dear ol' Mud'da, that in the future, they're going to grab you by the ankles, flip you upside down, and shake.
•?•
V-V
Varoufakis may be an expert on Game Theory, but he has no clue as to dealing with gaming of the system.
The idea of clandestine tax gestapo (including tourists) is absolutely appaling and the only possible reaction is to avoid holidays in Greece and travel instead to Crimea.
Yes clearly the plan is to turn tourists into spies . . . im sure that will work out well . . .
Government is very stupid.
Syriza will quite possibly not last through the summer.
Is Varoufakis a Stalinist? Making the Greek people suspicious towards Tourists is really a great idea.
Good idea
Wow! So much for the possibility of even slightly "good guys" breaking into politics. One has to wonder whether even Ron Paul would remain a nominally "good guy" if he actually became president (obviously Rand Paul would not).
If nothing else, this has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what I've been saying for years (actually, decades). That the fictions called "authority" and "government" are absolutely, positively, inherently and unavoidably DESTRUCTIVE and EVIL (in the non-religious == non-arbitrary == non-authoritarian sense).
Notice that these creeps, who all good folks hoped would be "different" never consider cutting back expenses. This is a fatal disease that sadly even infects even these newly installed predators.
SICK. Either humans violently revolt, or humans are finished.
Which means, humans are finished.
Yup. I have come to same conclusion. So, might as well party while the place is hopping.
Only until they're caught. Then the nearest cross may have a new resident
reminds me of when Homer became a narc for Springfield PD:
https://ak-images3.jackthreads.com/v1/image/1305257/size/tl-horizontal_m...
it's totes unpossible that something could go wrong with this BRILLIAN PLAN!
darn I clicked on the link expecting Homer's heroic verses-DontFollowMyAdvice literally! (never again)
Beware anyone in govt referring to themselves as a "reformer"
This is SO simple.
You tax the tourist...naturally...
Note, I didn't say you pay the tax man here.
I said you "tax" the tourist.
Keep in mind that in most places in the Med, trade is still
done "in kind" between parties who know each other
since forever.
WTF. Can someone explain how this is supposed to work?
I as a tourist, would pop over to Greece and walk around uncomfortably close to various Greek people with my hidden dictaphone waiting for someone to loudly pronounce how they are not paying their taxes.
This is soooo fuckin' stupid, I swear I've lost a month of my life and it's actually April 1st!!!
I can 't believe the change in Varoufuckthis.
This has got to be one almighty bluff to get a drachma printed up or these guys have just bent over and allowed Largarde to get to work with her strap-on.
I am genuinely gobsmacked at the changes here.
Yes I know, I have a gullible streak!
Me too dude. I keep having hope and keep getting bitch smacked. Shame on me. But maybe they are still playing out their hand...
Not supposed to work - it's supposed to make the Greeks angy with the eurocrats
At the end the will reinvent their Trotsky
So..maybe a lil OT here...just thinking out loud if you will....why would governments raid 401k's bank accts.etc...when they can just print all they want?
Is there more to this 'bail ins' than meets the eye?
As far as video monitoring for tax evasion in greece... well, they dont really have to hire anyone now. The thought alone is sposda scare people straight.
Like in skool..put your heads down..and teacher will select a 'secret monitor' (nobody knows who teacher picks).. while she goes to have an irish coffee with the other teachers... guess what?
She picked nobody..but everone 'thought' she picked somebody. .so they ALL behaved. Same trick.
Whoa - wait - what?
What else do the Germans and European Banks want from Greece?
Greeks become slaves of the banks for the next century
the little industry was destroyed and the german competition dominates greek (and EU) markets anyhow,
austerity is drastic.
Greeks are going to starve. This will trigger an upheaval with guns in the streets.
The bottom line when a sovereign takes on debt it cannot repay, it is going to have to screw one or the other of two groups. Either the banksters that made the loans, by defaulting, or the taxpayers that it put on the hook to repay the loans, by restructuring.
There is a dirty little secret that central banksters of the world don't want anyone to know, having gone all-in on the bet that they can make all assets -- and most especially sovereign assets -- money-good from here to eternity.
Dirty though it may be, it's just common sense. It is always less expensive to default than to restructure. Defaulting, sure you ruin your credit rating temporarily, but you permanently eliminate the carrying charges for your past sins. Hopefully, with the lesson learned by the burned fingers of both the sovereign and the banksters.
The reason sovereigns are more prone to restructure than to default nowadays than they used to be, is because they are less afraid of being overthrown by their citizens than they used to be. They're less afraid of their people than they are of the banksters.
People need to start revolting.
I'm already revolted.
There are alot of revolting people out there.
Future of the world:
Each country is a POW camp with the elite playing political games, starting nasty little wars and self enriching themselves.
Welcome the New Feudal society my fellow serfs!
Snitches get stiches.
Simple soloution: kill the motherfuckers when they show up. No one will want the job.
So this transformational Syriza policy spy on your citizens to squeeze every nickel out of them to pay the banksters
Pathetic but entirely predictable. The "left" everywhere is a joke
Osterity is all they can offer
Opa!
The tax spies’ income is itself surely taxable.
Collecting their tax will require another layer of tax officials and field officers, who have to be paid for their work. Then they in turn will have to be audited.
Recurse until head-exploding singularity.
lol, when the libertarian professor becomes agent of the Stasi state...to catch the thieves.
Faced with reality of Oligarchy hold the libertarian creed only has one outlet : neo-statism which could go neo-fascism.
The race to bottom infects all participants. Desperate times.
This is true. A family member was in shipping in Greece, retired now. I asked how his former employer, a Piraeus-based shipping company is doing. He said they are doing just fine.
I see more to this than meets the eye.
YV had to do something to buy some time to get the process of Grexit secretly underway whilst giving them the impression he is falling into line with the Troika. Even ratcheting down the language; softening the word Troika to Institutions is clever, giving them the impression this guy is a pushover. He is anything but.
Seriously, how effective would a raft of 8 week employed quasi-government spies be? Tourists even! Armed with cellular phones in bars and nightclubs? It's hilarious. Varoufakis is having a laugh whilst still appealing to the Troika's sense of extreme state control - spies everywhere - it's brilliant. They'll love it!!
Oh yeah, changing the culture at the point of gun or by sending spies into their own citizen...
I still remember how the taxman is "welcomed" with pitchfork in the small countryside village and towns.
Gotta love some part of the Greek population more now.
"... There was a trampling of boots and another blast on the comb as the children charged into the living-room. Mrs Parsons brought the spanner. Winston let out the water and disgustedly removed the clot of human hair that had blocked up the pipe. He cleaned his fingers as best he could in the cold water from the tap and went back into the other room.
‘Up with your hands!’ yelled a savage voice. A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from behind the table and was menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his small sister, about two years younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of wood. Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies. Winston raised his hands above his head, but with an uneasy feeling, so vicious was the boy’s demeanour, that it was not altogether a game.
‘You’re a traitor!’ yelled the boy. ‘You’re a thought-criminal! You’re a Eurasian spy! I’ll shoot you, I’ll vaporize you, I’ll send you to the salt mines!’
Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting ‘Traitor!’ and ‘Thought-criminal!’ the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambolling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy’s eye, a quite evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.
Mrs Parsons’ eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and back again. In the better light of the living room he noticed with interest that there actually was dust in the creases of her face. ‘They do get so noisy,’ she said. ‘They’re disappointed because they couldn’t go to see the hanging, that’s what it is. I’m too busy to take them, and Tom won’t be back from work in time.’
‘Why can’t we go and see the hanging?’ roared the boy in his huge voice.
‘Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!’ chanted the little girl, still capering round.
Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in the Park that evening, Winston remembered. This happened about once a month, and was a popular spectacle. Children always clamoured to be taken to see it. He took his leave of Mrs Parsons and made for the door. But he had not gone six steps down the passage when something hit the back of his neck an agonizingly painful blow. It was as though a red-hot wire had been jabbed into him. He spun round just in time to see Mrs Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult. ...
For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force? The sex impulse was dangerous to the Party, and the Party had turned it to account. They had played a similar trick with the instinct of parenthood. The family could not actually be abolished, and, indeed, people were encouraged to be fond of their children, in almost the old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand, were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. Th family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately. ...
Suddenly his heart seemed to turn to ice and his bowels to water. A figure in blue overalls was coming down the pavement, not ten metres away. It was the girl from the Fiction Department, the girl with dark hair. The light was failing, but there was no difficulty in recognizing her. She looked him straight in the face, then walked quickly on as though she had not seen him.
For a few seconds Winston was too paralysed to move. Then he turned to the right and walked heavily away, not noticing for the moment that he was going in the wrong direction. At any rate, one question was settled. There was no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him. She must have followed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived. It was too great a coincidence. Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered. It was enough that she was watching him. Probably she had seen him go into the pub as well. ..."
- Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
His name was Francis Sawyer~~~~~
They wanted to bury him out the back!
This describes China in the 1960s and it wasn't a novel.
To the subject at hand. @ombudsman is closest to how I read this theatre. There are many metaphors to chose from: 'pissing contest', 'game of chicken', 'Mexican stand-off' and so on. Mr V-fake-us is 'spitting in the eye' of the troika aka 'institutions'. He knows (and I reckon the people know) these clauses inserted in this hand of negotiating is absurd. It's only purpose is to embarrass, 'show-up' and otherwise insult the EU-side to back down from their demands and keep the debt rolling along. The problem is, those institutions may just say, fine make an ass of yourselves and the people will turn you out in record time. This, to me is just more haggling in the market.
well that didn't take long. that's the left I expected. It'll get worse.
the utter stupidity of leftists never ceases to bewilder me.
Can someone please connect the dots from this Greek shite to the story on Swedes - Danes wanting their citizens to travel for sex?
Thanks - I know it's there
Alex, the answer is "What are examples of government interventions into private life for when government interventions into the financial system have gone horribly wrong?"
Why doesn't .gov's just get on with it, We know they want recording devices in every home/ business heck put cameras in every home as well ( Samsung smart tv's recording everthing). put that gps /voice recording chip in us all!
I have read that an Israile has applied for a patient that has a gps chip that has a lethal dose of cynide in it this way the gov can just kill you from afar at will.
There now what a wonderful world!
Seems Tyler (and the Greeks) may have been suckered - https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/greece-crisis-did-troika2-doctor...