Cannot Be Serious

The Times reports on the enormous scale of tax avoidance in Greece highlighting the moves by 80,000 wealthy citizens to funnel more than €200,000 each out of the country in recent times.

But I fail to see how the Syriza-led government is leading by example when one of the first things it did on coming to office was to abolish a tax on second homes, not least owning a second home would be seen as a sign of relative affluence in any other European country.

Greek PM makes last-ditch plea to Merkel for cash

Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel and Alexis Tsipras speak at the start of their meeting at the EU leaders summit in Brussels Reuters

By Anthee Carassava and Bruno Waterfield - The Times

Greece’s left-wing prime minister pleaded with Angela Merkel last night to speed up the granting of an emergency loan before the country goes bankrupt and is forced to leave the euro.

Alexis Tsipras met the German chancellor on the sidelines of a Brussels summit a day after the Greek Treasury admitted that it could not pay civil service salaries due at the end of the month.

The meeting came a day before eurozone finance ministers meet today in Riga to review progress in negotiations between Athens and its creditors.

Mrs Merkel said that she wanted to keep Greece in the single currency but Mr Tsipras’s government must provide detailed commitments to reform the country’s bloated public sector.

“At the highest level, the Germans want to keep Greece in the euro area and find a solution, but time is running short and there may have to be more drama before Tsipras can put his foot down and reach an agreement,” one senior official said.

In yesterday’s short meeting, Mr Tsipras outlined specific proposals to Mrs Merkel to unlock €7 billion in rescue aid. The meeting was described as having taken place “in a positive and constructive atmosphere”.

A government official denied reports that Mr Tsipras had threatened Germany with snap general elections to secure a loosening of austerity policies.

As negotiations took place, Greece increased pressure last night on its tycoons, vowing zero tolerance of tax evasion, as the government hauled in a prominent businessmen.

Leonidas Bobolas was arrested for three hours on Wednesday and released after paying €1.8 million in back taxes for billions earned from major public works contracts.

With family business interests ranging from construction to media, Mr Bobolas and other members of his family have long featured top on a list of about 2,000 suspected tax evaders with accounts in Switzerland.

Mr Bobolas spoke of his fury at the arrest, indicating that he felt betrayed by his country. He said he had been given until April 30 to make the payment but that the authorities hauled him in to make him pay before the deadline.

“Usually, prosecutors wait until the period within which you can pay expires and if the deadline expires and you have not made the payment, they start the legal procedure,” he said. “I was surprised yesterday because I intended to settle the case and prevent it from becoming a criminal one.”

Panagiotis Nikoloudis, a former supreme court prosecutor now responsible for cracking down on corruption, said the government was determined to raise funds by clamping down on tax cheats. “In this government, all Greeks are equal before the law. This government will use any means at its disposal to collect unpaid taxes,” he said “There will be zero tolerance against tax dodgers and no exceptions made for anyone.”

A list of 2,059 Greeks, including tycoons, shipowners, artists and a handful of politicians, was given to Athens by French authorities in 2010 to help to crack down on rampant tax evasion.

Successive governments were accused of keeping the list secret until a journalist, Kostas Vaxevanis, published it in 2012, embarrassing Greece’s business and political elite.

At least three other rosters of alleged tax dodgers are being investigated, including 80,000 wealthy Greeks who funnelled more than €200,000 each into foreign bank accounts at the height of the country’s financial crisis.

Athens hopes that the crackdown will bring in more than €3 billion in fines and unpaid taxes by June, when Greece faces more than €10 billion in loan repayments to the European Union and IMF.