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Greece Proposes Using Tourists as Tax Spies to Fill Shortfall

zimmer

Educating the Ignorant
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Socialism requires force, and when socialism implodes... as it always does (just a matter of time) things get really ugly and as we see evolves to some of the worst aspects of the USSR with not just the state with an iron fist, but with the state employing people to spy on each other.

Socialism... What a gift.

PARIS — Despite the European accord last month to extend a financial lifeline to Greece, Athens is rapidly running out of cash.
So it is scrambling to find new, even radical ways to fill the shortfall — including a proposal to recruit citizens and tourists to spy on suspected tax evaders.

That includes a proposal to enlist “casual” tax spies — tourists, students, housekeepers and other nonprofessional inspectors — “to pose, after some basic training, as customers, on behalf of the tax authorities, while wired for sound and video,”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/b...-tourists-as-tax-spies-to-fill-shortfall.html
 
Socialism requires force, and when socialism implodes... as it always does (just a matter of time) things get really ugly and as we see evolves to some of the worst aspects of the USSR with not just the state with an iron fist, but with the state employing people to spy on each other.

Socialism... What a gift.

Has absolutely nothing to do with socialism. Tax evasion in Greece is a national sport and has been since the Ottomans were in charge. It was one of the main ways to "stick it to the Ottomans" so to say. Tax evasion is the reason Greece got into the situation they are in.
 
Has absolutely nothing to do with socialism. Tax evasion in Greece is a national sport and has been since the Ottomans were in charge. It was one of the main ways to "stick it to the Ottomans" so to say. Tax evasion is the reason Greece got into the situation they are in.

Really? I thought it was because 80% of Greeces economy was the services sector. Greece gets 47% of GDP in tax revenue, the US only gets 20%, seems like even with tax dodgers they have much more than is required.
 
Socialism requires force, and when socialism implodes... as it always does (just a matter of time) things get really ugly and as we see evolves to some of the worst aspects of the USSR with not just the state with an iron fist, but with the state employing people to spy on each other.

Socialism... What a gift.

Employing foreigners to identify tax fraud of the domestic citizens is not unheard of. Germany bribed a number of Swiss citizens to in essence commit industrial espionage by copying computer data from which the German administration extracted infoinformation of unpaid taxes. This was done without legal mandate in a number of cases.
 
If the Greek government gives me free first class tickets to Greece and pays for my hotel vouchers I will gladly spy for them. :cool:
 
Really? I thought it was because 80% of Greeces economy was the services sector. Greece gets 47% of GDP in tax revenue, the US only gets 20%, seems like even with tax dodgers they have much more than is required.

No idea where the hell you got those numbers. And Tax revenue in % of GDP is a stupid number and your numbers are wrong. Tax evasion is a massive problem in the world, and in Europe the amount is over 1 trillion euros per year according to the EU.

Tax evasion costs European Union 'one trillion Euros a year' | World | News | Daily Express

"Let’s put that into some perspective: one trillion euros is nearly double the 2012 combined annual budget deficit of all the Member States."

Mr Barroso added: "It is more than the total spent on health across the EU in 2008.

And one of the worst places is Greece.

Two Out of Three Greeks Commits Tax Evasion | GreekReporter.com

Plus the US service sector is 80% of the US economy and actually higher than Greeces (slightly).
 
No idea where the hell you got those numbers. And Tax revenue in % of GDP is a stupid number and your numbers are wrong.

You only think it is a stupid number because of how morally bankrupt it make socialism look

and yes my numbers are correct

gree.jpg


http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/docume...P-EN.PDF/497e3b55-dca0-482f-93e0-d82f81bc92d7

Tax evasion is a massive problem in the world, and in Europe the amount is over 1 trillion euros per year according to the EU.

Tax evasion costs European Union 'one trillion Euros a year' | World | News | Daily Express

You have confused a symptom with a problem. The problem is that taxes are to high, if they wernt so high there would be less tax dodgers.

Plus the US service sector is 80% of the US economy and actually higher than Greeces (slightly).

except the US services mostly cater to the US while the Greek services mostly cater to non-Greeks
 
Socialism requires force, and when socialism implodes... as it always does (just a matter of time) things get really ugly and as we see evolves to some of the worst aspects of the USSR with not just the state with an iron fist, but with the state employing people to spy on each other.

Socialism... What a gift.

So a country cannot pay its bills because of people too cheap to pay their taxes....sounds like a place close to home
 
Employing foreigners to identify tax fraud of the domestic citizens is not unheard of. Germany bribed a number of Swiss citizens to in essence commit industrial espionage by copying computer data from which the German administration extracted infoinformation of unpaid taxes. This was done without legal mandate in a number of cases.

They didn't bribe... they sold stolen info to the Germans.
 
So a country cannot pay its bills because of people too cheap to pay their taxes....sounds like a place close to home

The country is in trouble because they spent too much... have to much debt from socialist schemes... yep... sounds like many dimwitted western countries
 
The country is in trouble because they spent too much... have to much debt from socialist schemes... yep... sounds like many dimwitted western countries

Tea Party Greeks. At least we can sleep easier knowing that Muslim extremism isn't the only radicalism spreading the globe.
 
Socialism requires force, and when socialism implodes... as it always does (just a matter of time) things get really ugly and as we see evolves to some of the worst aspects of the USSR with not just the state with an iron fist, but with the state employing people to spy on each other.

Socialism... What a gift.

Having people pay their taxes and follow the law is socialism? I agree that this seems like a creepy way to try and enforce the tax code but with the endemic problems Greece has faced with tax collection maybe it's warranted.
 
Has absolutely nothing to do with socialism. Tax evasion in Greece is a national sport and has been since the Ottomans were in charge. It was one of the main ways to "stick it to the Ottomans" so to say. Tax evasion is the reason Greece got into the situation they are in.

I would guess that tax evasion is less of a problem in Greece than the spending of more money than you are receiving.
 
I would guess that tax evasion is less of a problem in Greece than the spending of more money than you are receiving.

Not if that tax evasion was the reason for you spending more money than you were receiving. If you budget 100 dollars income, but only get 80 because someone did not pay your full amount.. whos fault is that?
 
You only think it is a stupid number because of how morally bankrupt it make socialism look

No because it is a stupid number.

and yes my numbers are correct

Are they?


Well take a look at the numbers again. Let me give you a hint.. when something is % of GDP.. remember to take any changes in GDP into account. That is why the numbers are silly and useless.

You have confused a symptom with a problem. The problem is that taxes are to high, if they wernt so high there would be less tax dodgers.

Typical right wing bull****. The problem is that the Greeks are not paying their taxes pure and simple. Stop denying the freaking obvious.

Tax evasion in Greece: In flagrante | The Economist

The trio use a novel technique to calculate levels of tax evasion in Greece. The authors look at a dataset from a large Greek bank, which contains information on individual borrowers’ credit applications between 2003 and 2010. Taken at face value, the data for self-employed borrowers make no sense. On average, self-employed Greeks spend 82% of their monthly reported income—ie, the amount they declare to the tax office—on servicing debt payments. Some professions, like lawyers and doctors, appear to spend more than 100% of their income on debt servicing.

That cannot be right: a rough rule of thumb is that a third of income should go on debt payments. Banks would not lend at these steepling debt-to-income ratios. Weirder still, the delinquency rates on loans do not seem to vary in line with these ratios: self-employed Greek doctors are both the most indebted profession and the one with the lowest delinquency probabilities.

Say what... how can that be?

The explanation, confirmed by bankers in statements to the authors, is that Greek banks have adapted their credit models to adjust borrowers’ reported incomes up to a best guess of their actual incomes. Lenders assume that self-employed borrowers in certain occupations are under-reporting, in other words, and plug this assumption into their decision-making processes. Tax evasion is less an under-the-radar activity, more a social norm.

Cool so Greeks just make up their income as they go when reporting to the Greek IRS.. can you do that in the US?

except the US services mostly cater to the US while the Greek services mostly cater to non-Greeks

Eh what? what on earth are you talking about?
 
Not if that tax evasion was the reason for you spending more money than you were receiving. If you budget 100 dollars income, but only get 80 because someone did not pay your full amount.. whos fault is that?

I'd place the blame on the person who optimistly thought that they were going to get 100 dollars when history indicated that they would most likely get 80 dollars.

Socialism works backwards from reality. If I have an income of 100 dollars, then I will budget my expenses based on that income, and I will decide which of my desires have the highest priority and eliminate the lowest priority expenses. Socialism on the other hand does the opposite. It never occurs to a socialist that something can be done without.
 
Having people pay their taxes and follow the law is socialism?
Socialism has created their problems.

Then you have another element of, and one of the worse of Socialism... turning everyday citizens into spies for the state. Just like the USSR.

I agree that this seems like a creepy way to try and enforce the tax code but with the endemic problems Greece has faced with tax collection maybe it's warranted.
Like I said... the ugliness of socialism exposes itself when it starts to implode. Turning people into spies for the state. The IRS-KGB.
 
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Not if that tax evasion was the reason for you spending more money than you were receiving. If you budget 100 dollars income, but only get 80 because someone did not pay your full amount.. whos fault is that?

You only spend what you take in... you don't spend based on fantasy income. You see... that's the beauty of Limited Government and individual responsibility instead of the state being Mommy Dearest... mistakes are small.

America's Socialists are just as guilty of this idiocy. It explains how we have 17TRILLION in debt and 60TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.
 
The Greek people only realized 10% of the funds borrowed from the IMF the rest went to the banks. They are broke. IMF here is how it works. When you loan money to banksters and it gets stolen dont go crying for the people who didnt get it to pay you back with their islands, water system, pentions, Loto program and bus passes. You made a bad loan EAT IT!
 
The IMF has intentionally destroyed most countries that they have loaned money to. They loan unrealistic amounts to deperate countries then want the resources of that country and austerity to starve the people. The elitists dont want some of what people have worked for, they want it all.
"

The IMF bails out rich bankers, creating a moral hazard and greater instability in the global economy

The IMF routinely pushes countries to deregulate financial systems. The removal of regulations that might limit speculation has greatly increased capital investment in developing country financial markets. More than $1.5 trillion crosses borders every day. Most of this capital is invested short-term, putting countries at the whim of financial speculators. The Mexican 1995 peso crisis was partly a result of these IMF policies. When the bubble popped, the IMF and US government stepped in to prop up interest and exchange rates, using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street bankers. Such bailouts encourage investors to continue making risky, speculative bets, thereby increasing the instability of national economies. During the bailout of Asian countries, the IMF required governments to assume the bad debts of private banks, thus making the public pay the costs and draining yet more resources away from social programs."
clip_image00211.jpg
 

What's funny is to watch the socialists complain that tax collection is the problem... it wasn't before the socialists got in. The country was doing fine for decades as the article I linked to illustrated.

In come the socialist schemes, the perversion of society, and THE BIG PROBLEMS... but the socialists claim it's not the dimwitted socialists schemes that are at fault... The Police State isn't strong enough... which is what you need for socialism to work... FORCE.

Socialism is a sick ideology in so many ways... and now we see the worst of it appear... USSR... KGB styled spying of citizens... on citizens. It's vile, but that's the bitter fruit of socialism.
 
They didn't bribe... they sold stolen info to the Germans.

That is not true in every case. At least in one that I checked out at the time, the German officials negotiating the deal specified what they wanted to have for the money and the bribed person went back and got more detail. I was led to understand that this was the case in other deals, but know so only for one. What is interesting is that the finance officials have no legal mandate to bribe foreigners to steal data and commit industrial espionage. This was different in the first data deal, which was as you say the purchase of a CD by the BND, which does have a legal mandate to do such transactions. The later ones were transacted by domestic clerks, however, who had no legal basis to commission theft in a foreign country. Furthermore, the data purchase would have been totally illegal, had it been commissioned in a domestic bank. The administration is constitutionally not allowed to have access to that type of data.
 
I'd place the blame on the person who optimistly thought that they were going to get 100 dollars when history indicated that they would most likely get 80 dollars.

But the problem here is, that it might be 80, it might be 70, or 90, or 50.. what do you budget after if the income is so all over the place?

Socialism works backwards from reality. If I have an income of 100 dollars, then I will budget my expenses based on that income, and I will decide which of my desires have the highest priority and eliminate the lowest priority expenses. Socialism on the other hand does the opposite. It never occurs to a socialist that something can be done without.

The only thing out of reality is conservative thinking in the 21st century.
 
You only spend what you take in... you don't spend based on fantasy income. You see... that's the beauty of Limited Government and individual responsibility instead of the state being Mommy Dearest... mistakes are small.

LOL typical American right wing kitchen sink bull**** theory. How can you only spend what you take in when your income comes in AFTER you have spent? You dont seem to understand how companies and governments work.. they do not work like a freaking household.

America's Socialists are just as guilty of this idiocy. It explains how we have 17TRILLION in debt and 60TRILLION in unfunded liabilities.

Yea those damn socialists like Reagan and Bush right?
 
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