Added measures brought by the 1.5 billion euro "black hole"

Official figures revealed by the ministry of Finance show the complete collapse of the budget drawn up 3 months ago by Minister George Papaconstantinou, as well as the collapse of the entire market.

According to the figures, in the two months of January and February this year, instead of the Treasury collecting at least 9.5 billion euros as required by the annual target set by the Memorandum, they collected only 7.94 billion.

The gap has been over 15% since the very beginning of the year.

Despite harsh measures and draconian laws for over a year now, the sovereign funds received 9.2% less revenue than last year, while they should have collected at least 8%-8.5% more, to remain marginally close to the annual target.

At the same time, a statement issued on Friday by the Ministry of Finance recognizes that the uncollected debts have reached 37 billion euro.

They have thus increased by 20% and more, even after regulations but also threats of seizures and detentions, whereby the Treasury tried to force debtors to put their hands in their own pockets.

Also striking is the fact that despite the dismissal of all forms of employees hired on contractually agreed-upon terms, but also the dramatic cuts in wages and pensions, government spending is still going strong. The primary costs of the government remain unabated at 8.1 billion euro, exactly like last year. Total spending was 9.3 billion (versus 9 billion last year), while interest expenditure remained virtually unchanged.

Circles within the ministry, however, argue that the central government deficit reached 1 billion because:

- Last year, the first two months had an additional 500 million euro income from motor tax and business tax
- Last year, the high tax returns for heating oil were still in effect.
-This year, the new tax system is in effect which has lessened the tax burden for people of an income of under 40.000 euro a year, which is reflected in a lower percentage of tax withholding
- In the last quarter of 2010, the recession was great and it definitely affected the profitability and revenues from indirect taxation

Thus, they claim that given the circumstances, the revenue shortfall is very small and certainly not irreversible given interventions to tackle tax evasion

They also point out that in terms of the costs, 350 million was given to pay off old hospital debts.