Greeks face heavy fines if they don't spend 30% of their income electronically

Clement Kaliyar

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Quote from: yulionoo on December 26, 2019, 04:00:16 AM

~snip
I think it is not difficult for the government to make tax collection rules automatically through bank accounts. they will make rules and then announce to people and then the rules will be applied. maybe some residents will reject this rule. but did you know the character of government is always authoritarian. they will always try to take tax from their citizens. because taxes are the country's biggest income. the government in my country also issued regulations like that they force their citizens to pay taxes automatically. that policy even though I disagree I can't do anything because I'm just an ordinary person.

If you are living in a dictator ship kind of environment you really cannot do anything about that, if you are living in places where general elections select who comes into power then you can make a choice the next time you go to vote whether you want them back to rule the country and if a government in that situation will make a rule like that then i bet they will not come to power again. The politicians should not be our dictators and we are not their slaves to enforce everything on us, i am from a democratic country and hence this is my view point.

yulionoo

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Quote from: Clement Kaliyar on December 17, 2019, 12:05:33 PM

Quote from: yulionoo on December 17, 2019, 04:36:32 AM

I have also read the news that several countries have also issued policies to limit and reduce the use of fiat money. and maybe this policy will encourage the government to also legalize cryptocurency as an alternative means of payment.

It will not encourage any government to legalize crypto but they want to have complete control over the transactions made by their citizens.

Quote from: yulionoo on December 17, 2019, 04:36:32 AM

and I agree with the opinion that maybe the Greek government issued the policy to be able to take tax automatically from the accounts of its citizens so that no one will be in arrears to pay taxes.

Is it even allowed to automatically withdraw the tax directly from the account without a consent, it is against the freedom of an individual and i am not sure that will happen because Greece is a democratic republic and if a government does anything then they will be removed from power in the next election if there is a favorable candidate or a party that caters to the needs of the common citizen.

I think it is not difficult for the government to make tax collection rules automatically through bank accounts. they will make rules and then announce to people and then the rules will be applied. maybe some residents will reject this rule. but did you know the character of government is always authoritarian. they will always try to take tax from their citizens. because taxes are the country's biggest income. the government in my country also issued regulations like that they force their citizens to pay taxes automatically. that policy even though I disagree I can't do anything because I'm just an ordinary person.

gentlemand

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Quote from: wxa7115 on December 25, 2019, 03:52:48 PM

And this is why those kind of laws are useless

And this is why we're going to end up with governmentcoins and they will go all out for cashlessness. When there is no other way of paying or being paid you have no other choice but to comply with whatever they impose on you.

wxa7115

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Quote from: sana54210 on December 17, 2019, 11:31:46 AM

Maybe the best course would have been having some sort of checks time to time on every business instead of making an absurd new law for it? If you leave it to people to report their income that doesn't mean that 30% of it electronic will change anything, they will make 1000 dollars in profit and say it was 100 dollars and they will spend 30 dollars of it online and you have about 3% of it going to online instead of 30% that way.

I feel like that is not something we can recover ourselves that easily but also governments can't allow people to just report themselves without proper checking. If Greece had a bit more money saved for something like IRS in america they could have actually made that money back easily thanks to people finding criminals evading taxes.

And this is why those kind of laws are useless, people are always going to find a way around the law especially if they believe that the law that is being imposed upon them is unfair, and there is no doubt in my mind that mandating the citizens of a country how to spend their money is without a doubt an abuse of power from that government.

However if there is one thing that is good about that law is that it is making people painfully aware that all politicians around the world do not really have as a goal the benefit of the population, they only want to perpetuate themselves in positions of power and they will do everything that they can to achieve that goal.

stompix

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Quote from: Dart18 on December 17, 2019, 10:49:52 AM

The heck!
This is something new for a country.

Quote

Politics of Germany. Germany is a democratic, federal parliamentary republic, where federal legislative power is vested in the Bundestag (the parliament of Germany) and the Bundesrat (the representative body of the Länder, Germany's regional states).

-Wikipedia

Yeah, what the heck indeed...
Greece and Germany are two different countries! And no, that nothing new for a country, that's why is called a federal republic.

Quote from: Vishnu.Reang on December 17, 2019, 11:26:49 AM

Quote from: stompix on December 17, 2019, 03:30:03 AM

~.

Once they were admitted in to the EU, another layer of taxation was implemented on the residents living in these countries.

Nothing like this happened and there is no such thing as a second layer of taxation in the EU.

Clement Kaliyar

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Quote from: yulionoo on December 17, 2019, 04:36:32 AM

I have also read the news that several countries have also issued policies to limit and reduce the use of fiat money. and maybe this policy will encourage the government to also legalize cryptocurency as an alternative means of payment.

It will not encourage any government to legalize crypto but they want to have complete control over the transactions made by their citizens.

Quote from: yulionoo on December 17, 2019, 04:36:32 AM

and I agree with the opinion that maybe the Greek government issued the policy to be able to take tax automatically from the accounts of its citizens so that no one will be in arrears to pay taxes.

Is it even allowed to automatically withdraw the tax directly from the account without a consent, it is against the freedom of an individual and i am not sure that will happen because Greece is a democratic republic and if a government does anything then they will be removed from power in the next election if there is a favorable candidate or a party that caters to the needs of the common citizen.

sana54210

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Maybe the best course would have been having some sort of checks time to time on every business instead of making an absurd new law for it? If you leave it to people to report their income that doesn't mean that 30% of it electronic will change anything, they will make 1000 dollars in profit and say it was 100 dollars and they will spend 30 dollars of it online and you have about 3% of it going to online instead of 30% that way.

I feel like that is not something we can recover ourselves that easily but also governments can't allow people to just report themselves without proper checking. If Greece had a bit more money saved for something like IRS in america they could have actually made that money back easily thanks to people finding criminals evading taxes.

Vishnu.Reang

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Quote from: stompix on December 17, 2019, 03:30:03 AM

Let me see.
National tax, Municipal tax, Church tax, 27% tax on dividends, 25% VAT, (in Greece is 24%), tax on land on buildings...you would think the black market is also rampant here. Oh, forgot to add, 180% tax on cars? 180%!!!
Yet, everyone is saying how Denmark is such a nice country to live in.

If the government in Greece would spend the money the same way it would be a different story.

The tax rates would be much lower, if the European Union cuts down its wasteful spending. For countries such as Sweden, Germany.etc, the tax rates were really high even before the European Union was formed. Once they were admitted in to the EU, another layer of taxation was implemented on the residents living in these countries. But I guess the people are fine with this. Recently Merkel forced the EU to spend more than €100 billion on the Syrian refugees and the EU residents were very happy with this move.

Dart18

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The heck!

This is something new for a country.

Quote

Politics of Germany. Germany is a democratic, federal parliamentary republic, where federal legislative power is vested in the Bundestag (the parliament of Germany) and the Bundesrat (the representative body of the Länder, Germany's regional states).

-Wikipedia

So where it the democracy here.
I know they want some changes but why put it in people.
Maybe some of them just dont want that kind of idea. Why not be a voting system instead. Let the people decide what will be convenient for the most.
If people are not using the electronically way then there must be something wrong with it.

Cherylstar86

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Quote from: yulionoo on December 17, 2019, 04:36:32 AM

I have also read the news that several countries have also issued policies to limit and reduce the use of fiat money. and maybe this policy will encourage the government to also legalize cryptocurency as an alternative means of payment.
and I agree with the opinion that maybe the Greek government issued the policy to be able to take tax automatically from the accounts of its citizens so that no one will be in arrears to pay taxes.

Every country has their own way of rules and regulations. Well, we have nothing to do about that since we just an ordinary people here in our society. Nowadays, I don't see any changes in our place but on that kind of situation as they limit and reduce fiat is somehow not a good idea in which fiat is the best choice of doing a payment transaction.

yulionoo

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I have also read the news that several countries have also issued policies to limit and reduce the use of fiat money. and maybe this policy will encourage the government to also legalize cryptocurency as an alternative means of payment.
and I agree with the opinion that maybe the Greek government issued the policy to be able to take tax automatically from the accounts of its citizens so that no one will be in arrears to pay taxes.

stompix

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Quote from: exstasie on December 16, 2019, 06:09:16 PM

So the Greeks are just genetically predisposed to tax evasion? Tongue

Not genetically but their history has forced them to do so.
Also, if you want to hear something funny, although greeks liked evading taxes, the ottoman empire used greek to collect taxes and rules the Balkans, the so-called phanariots and they were damn good at transforming coal into gold.

Quote from: exstasie on December 16, 2019, 06:09:16 PM

If tax rates like that are possible, it's no wonder 1/4 of the GDP is black market. Up to 45% income tax, up to 10% "solidarity" tax, 16% employee payroll tax, not to mention VAT, real property tax, etc.
As an American, I feel fleeced by the IRS but there is no comparison to Greece. I would dodge taxes too if I lived there.

Let me see.
National tax, Municipal tax, Church tax, 27% tax on dividends, 25% VAT, (in Greece is 24%), tax on land on buildings...you would think the black market is also rampant here. Oh, forgot to add, 180% tax on cars? 180%!!!
Yet, everyone is saying how Denmark is such a nice country to live in.

If the government in Greece would spend the money the same way it would be a different story.

exstasie

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Quote from: stompix on December 16, 2019, 02:30:55 AM

Rampant is not really accurate. It's more like a national sport or some sort of religious movement.
Greeks have been among the first ones to go bankrupt in human history, they will be probably the last.
They hate the taxman but at the same time they love getting freebies, they pay zero in taxes but everybody was enjoying benefits from the government, just imagine the term "14th wage". Yeah, they were getting 14th wages a year!

I've been to Greece a couple of times, even before the euro and the crisis, receipts were nonexistent, you would get your restaurant bill on a piece of paper handwritten, asking to pay with a card, the machine is broken, asking for a receipt, the machine is broken.

Yeah, the measure is not right, its nor normal but neither is that country.
Either way, nothing is going to save them, the whole country and system is flawed from birth.

So the Greeks are just genetically predisposed to tax evasion? Tongue

What about the notion that tax rates are too high, to the point that businesses and labor are opting for the black market?

Quote

Few problems are more ingrained, or harder to combat, than the shadow economy, which appears to be growing again as new austerity measures compel once law-abiding Greeks to go off the books. Greece’s black market is estimated at 20 to 25 percent of the gross domestic product, as more people have stopped reporting their income to avoid paying taxes that, by some estimates, have risen to 70 percent of an individual’s gross income.

“The heart of the matter for an ever-rising number of citizens and businesses is that they simply do not have the financial resources anymore to meet their rising tax obligations,” said Jens Bastian, an economist and a member of a team of European Union specialists that helped supervise the country’s earlier bailouts.

Short on alternatives, he said, “many are falling back into the gray economy.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/world/europe/greece-bailout-black-market.html

If tax rates like that are possible, it's no wonder 1/4 of the GDP is black market. Up to 45% income tax, up to 10% "solidarity" tax, 16% employee payroll tax, not to mention VAT, real property tax, etc.

As an American, I feel fleeced by the IRS but there is no comparison to Greece. I would dodge taxes too if I lived there.

bdivrik

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Quote from: Sithara007 on December 13, 2019, 10:01:48 PM

Is this a joke? How can the government force something like this, when the people are already paying the income tax over their salaries? The tax rates in Greece remains one of the highest in the world, and now the government want to take away a part of the remainder as well. This will never be implemented successfully, and people will find loopholes to get around the system.

tax rates are also very high in Turkey. People pay part of their earnings as taxes. But the main problem is this. There are very high taxes on imported goods. How could something like this happen. A state that earns more than the producer? I don't think it's the right economic model.

figmentofmyass

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Quote from: Theb on December 16, 2019, 10:28:55 AM

I wonder how forcing them to spend 30% of their income electronically will avoid tax evasion when they can also fake their real income in the first place.

i assume they are addressing income tax fraud in other ways. if they improved income tax reporting and deterred cash payments of wages, then mandatory electronic payments would address VAT/sales tax fraud on the consumer side. it looks like that's what they are targeting with this measure. studies estimate that 3.5% of greek GDP is lost to VAT fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Greece#Extent_of_Greek_tax_evasion_and_corruption

Theb

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I wonder how forcing them to spend 30% of their income electronically will avoid tax evasion when they can also fake their real income in the first place. I mean there are more reasonable ways of monitoring and avoiding tax evasion and money laundering without them forcing their citizens on spending their money. Encouraging their citizens to spend rather than to save money is more about them earning more income through taxes and it's really not about avoiding tax evasion. This might just be a desperate move from a country with a bad economy to encourage their people to spend and spend so that the economy will keep going.

beerlover

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Oh, I have never guessed about the online shopping as a way of not evading taxes. It is a marvelous idea, I know we don't spend that much money anywhere in the world and if Greeks are not ready for it they will have to have online shops for basically everything but if they can this is actually an amazing idea.

But, I hate it when governments decide where your money should go, I am not against taxes tho, I like taxes as long as that tax goes to right places, a country is only as strong as how efficient the taxes are used (Greece may not be a good example of that lol) but thanks to this forced online shopping method there would be less people evading taxes. They will have to figure out how they can make sure they know the 100% of peoples income versus spending 30% of it of course but that is a whole another topic.

figmentofmyass

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Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on December 15, 2019, 02:01:07 PM

Quote

Greece also has one of the lowest internet usage rates in the EU at 72 per cent. This suggests that some in the country could struggle to meet the 30 per cent target.

Gotta love that, the government forcing people who don't use the internet to spend their money electronically, which usually includes spending it on the internet. This reminds me of China's push to go cashless, which would put their elderly population in something of a bind.

apparently cash is still the primary means of payment for greek consumers. part of the reason for that is that wages are still heavily paid in cash. so a 30% requirement is pretty messed up. Undecided

for the last few years, the greek government has been incentivizing electronic payments by offering income tax deductions. those aged 70+ don't need to use electronic payments to get the deduction so presumably there is a similar exemption here.

audaciousbeing

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Efforts like this are one of the things that government will continue to get wrong. What they should do to attack an action, they are focusing on something else. What if the a Greek is someone who would save 70% of his income, would he be punished for not spending? I don't understand. What a reasonable government should do is to focus on the source of receipt as a way to get tax. There is a form of Personal Income Tax which is deducted from the employees income before reaching his hand, there is also Withholding tax. Going after individuals will result in a waste of energy and resources rather corporate organisations where individuals gets their income.

stompix

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Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on December 15, 2019, 02:01:07 PM

I don't know about Greece's "rampant tax evasion" problem, but I suspect that's just an excuse for their government to restrict how Greeks spend their own money, much like how the US has used the war on terror to spy on everyone.

Rampant is not really accurate. It's more like a national sport or some sort of religious movement.
Greeks have been among the first ones to go bankrupt in human history, they will be probably the last.
They hate the taxman but at the same time they love getting freebies, they pay zero in taxes but everybody was enjoying benefits from the government, just imagine the term "14th wage". Yeah, they were getting 14th wages a year!

I've been to Greece a couple of times, even before the euro and the crisis, receipts were nonexistent, you would get your restaurant bill on a piece of paper handwritten, asking to pay with a card, the machine is broken, asking for a receipt, the machine is broken.

Yeah, the measure is not right, its nor normal but neither is that country.
Either way, nothing is going to save them, the whole country and system is flawed from birth.

Quote from: avatar_kiyoshi on December 14, 2019, 02:45:57 PM

Bitcoin is the currency for the people, it has proven to be perfect in Venezuela.

Apart from fake news and the usual stupid articles from bitcoin-related blogs, is there any proof of this?
Understand that it's one thing to usu something as a hedge against inflation and a totally different beast to use it daily.

Quote from: Sithara007 on December 13, 2019, 10:01:48 PM

The tax rates in Greece remains one of the highest in the world, and now the government want to take away a part of the remainder as well. T

Denmark: Hold my beer!
Sweden: Hold my beer!
Finland: Hold my reindeer!

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