Debts to Greek State Grow 1B Euros Monthly

While Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the country will begin to recover and stability is coming, Finance Ministry data showed that 2.5 million people can’t pay their taxes and debts to the state are growing at 1.07 billion euros ($1.45 billion) a month. That’s about 33.3 million euros ($45.3 million) a day. The debts in the first four months of the year rose by 4.3 billion euros, cutting into the government’s hopes for a quicker recovery as people still can’t meet their obligations because of harsh austerity measures that has seen them take big pay cuts, tax hikes, and slashed pensions. That has also created record unemployment and deep poverty. The news came as Samaras, the New Democracy Conservative leader, and his coalition partner and Deputy Premier/Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos, met to discuss how to correct what the premier called “injustices” wrought by austerity and ease the burden on citizens. They met in the wake of the major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) winning the European Parliament elections and showing, the premier said, that the government must address economic problems it had caused, including making it easier for people to pay debts to the state. “We are on the same wavelength,” Venizelos said of his talks with the premier. “It is our obligation to respond to people’s needs and provide solutions to the problems that we are all familiar with.” The bad news came as taxpayers are about to face a round of tough obligations. Notices for the new Single Property Tax will be sent out in July, payable in monthly installments until December. This will be in addition to the income tax installments, effectively doubling what people have to pay. Still in place as well is a solidarity tax that was imposed in 2011 – for one year – but has been kept and looks to be permanent although the government said it hoped to get rid of it, even as soon as next year. The government will have to convince its lenders, the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) to allow easing up on debtors, although at the same time little headway has been made going after tax cheats. The Troika is still squeezing the government to complete a joint action plan for the collection of expired debts to the tax authorities and social security funds, whose total has grown to 65.9 billion euros ($89.69 billion) according to the ministry data published on May 29.

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