Can Greeks be Trusted, Gian Sexsmith
After reading the Vanity Fair Magazine article “Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds” it really puts into perspective how bad and dishonest the Greeks’ government system is. They think, if you can get away without paying taxes then you’re already doing it. The amount of people that can get away with it was unbelievable. One of the quotes from the article says, “The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes… because no one is ever punished, it’s like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady.” As it’s said an estimated two- thirds of Greek doctors reported incomes under 12,000 dollars a year. The reason these doctors are saying they get paid so little is because an amount that low was not taxable. This is including doctors such as plastic surgeons who make millions of dollars not having to pay anything. One of the reasons that so many people do it and can get away with it is because the people who would be prosecuting them are doing it too, but that it can take up to 15 years to resolve tax cases in Greece. Greece’s new minister, Minister Papaconstantinou came to Greece last October. When he first got there the government estimated their budget deficit at 3.7 %. Later when he had the numbers revised the real numbers came out and were closer to 14%. After this all came out the “Ministry of Agriculture had created an off- the books unit employing 270 people to digitize the photographs of Greek public lands.” At the end of the discovery it was said that the there was only going to be a 7 billion euro deficit but in actuality it was more than 30 billion Euros. How could have this happened and no one of known about it till know? Now the question is if Greece is going to default on their debts. They would have to walk away from a 400 billion euro debt, or try and pay back the banks and countries that lent them the money. If not it could really hurt the other countries and could start the bankruptcy of the other countries.
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