Tourists wanted to crack down on Greek tax dodgers

Greece’s proposal to use “non-professional inspectors” including “students, housekeepers and even tourists” to crack down on tax evasion has earned the government wide scorn from political opponents and on the Internet. The proposal is one of seven reforms described in an attachment to a letter sent by Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to Dutch counterpart Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is also president of the Eurogroup — the gathering of the 19 eurozone finance ministers. Opposition parties New Democracy and PASOK, the coalition partners in the previous government, blasted the proposal as “ridiculous” and legally dubious.

If they expect to combat tax evasion this way, they are not only dangerous, since they do not grasp the legal ramifications of the measure, or its effectiveness, but are also ridiculous and expose the country to ridicule.

New Democracy spokesman Costas Karagounis

The government hasn’t confirmed the leaked contents of the letter, but didn’t deny them either when replying to New Democracy. The reform proposals will be discussed at a Eurogroup session in Brussels on Monday. The new Greek government insists that they are only looking for a new loan agreement, uncoupled from the fiscal adjustment demands and reforms stated in a “memorandum of understanding” between Greece and its creditors. The other Europeans see the two agreements as interchangeable, with the memorandum having no expiration date and its successful completion the prerequisite for new funding. To them, Greece is just playing with semantics for the benefit of a domestic audience.

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