Nikko Daralas and Loukas Gojas, the last two employees in the Greek private sector, have complained that workers can no longer cope with the increasing tax burden. Nikko, 32 from Kritinia (Rhodes, Greece) admitted “I have a cat to feed, and I can only afford to live in the discarded rubber tire of a VW campervan. With tax rates at 23,111,035 % I have to borrow a huge amount of money from a [nameless]* foreign bank just to pay my taxes.”
Greece’s Finance minister, Philippos Sachinidis and his 635 strong finance team drafted a report saying that the Greek Government could not hope to reduce the tax burden without the threat of government redundancies, which itself would incur greater costs due to the high redundancy payouts. They also said it would have a devastating effect on unemployment rates. On the television channel “ERT1” Minister Sachinidis was quoted as saying, “Mr Daralas is obviously a committed worker, but we feel there is more he should be doing to contribute to the Greek economy. He is only working 23 hours a day, which we think is very little, for someone in the private sector within the current economic climate.” In response Nikko Daralas countered that this 23 hours a day did not include the overtime he was effectively being forced to work.
Loukas Gojas, who is Mr Daralas’ union representative, said that it is ‘almost a full time job’ representing Mr Daralas, and that he would personally go on to the streets to protest for Mr Daralas’ working rights. Thankfully for Loukas, as a union representative, he was able to utilise a tax by-law to avoid paying tax this year. “Without this tax by-law, I would be in the same position as Nikko” Loukas shouted towards the Greek general public as he drove past them in his BMW.
*Goldman Sachs