Greek state unable to collect even 5% of debts

The taxes the Greek Finance Ministry trying to mop up are left only "on paper". Even when the case has gone to court and has been ruled in favor of the Greek state, the ministry's departments fail to receive even 5% of the debts.

The latest data of the Finance ministry show that despite adjudicating thousands of pending cases of tax evasion, the courts have awarded to the State in taxes and penalties a total of 14 billion euros. Nevertheless, but the State has just received 688.5 million euros, or 4.9%.

The hearing of cases might have taken years. The courts award fines for tax and customs offenses, which were appealed, but the 13.3 from 14 billion euros were not collected and came to be added to the black hole of arrears that have now exceeded 57 billion euros.

A typical example is the case of "Acropolis Stockbrokers" which was involved in the scandal of structured bonds. On 27 June 2012 the company was fined 4.8 billion euros. Individuals involved owe almost nearly 1 billion each. However, this penalty will remain "on paper" too since the State has not received even 10% of the pre-certification in litigation and company executives are already in jail.

Meanwhile, administrative courts have more than 117,000 tax cases, of which approximately 47,000 are for penalties and surcharges of 8.3 billion euros imposed on businesses and freelancers for infringements on VAT and other tax items.

Many of the allocated fines are extremely heavy and in order to avoid immediate demands from the government, taxpayers decide to go to court. Once their cases are heard and the amounts are finalized it is practically impossible for the State to collect their debts because they are unable to repay them.