The tax evasion party continues
For a long time now, the media has been commenting upon the “inflation rally” in supermarket prices. Every day, an unpleasant surprise awaits us on the shelves and then at the supermarket checkout. You count the products in your shoppong basketasket and add up the cost and you’re shocked. You multiply that cost, in your head, with the possible members of a large household and you wonder how families get by.
You then read from authoritative analysts in Kathimerini that “as long as consumption endures, producers and traders will keep increasing prices and profits.” But how does consumption hold up in a country with low wages and plenty of undeclared – and poorly paid – work? Part of the answer lies in the stories about what the self-employed declare to the tax authorities: Of the 615,475 self-employed who had a gross income of 39.07 billion euros, 356,957 declared a net profit of 3.39 billion euros. To make this clear: Only 1,359 self-employed reported an income of over 100,000 euros.
Is tax evasion also fueling the inflation rally? Because for prices to continue to disobey any logic (increases in some products reached up to 98% in one year) it must mean that many people can pay.
And while, as reported, the government’s intention is to immediately implement measures to deal with tax evasion through the expansion of electronic transactions, we remain quite skeptical. All governments have attempted to do the same, implementing various measures, but always with meager results, despite the initial celebratory statements. Like in 2017, when SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras declared that “the big party has ended.”
There is no doubt that economic issues are complex and international. Nor is the vicious cycle of inflation-profiteering-tax evasion something unprecedented. Except that the “party” continues right under our noses. And what’s worse, we are becoming more and more tolerant of both tax evasion and profiteering. Survival is, after all, a “sport” we all play. Since most people, it seems, are getting by, one way or another, life moves on. Until the moment it won’t move on because no way will suffice.
