"Focus" carried an interesting news piece on Greece today.....tax corruption.
Somewhere in the heart of the news item was this unemployed guy. Somehow for 2014....he had tossed 937,000 Euro into his regular bank account last year. The tax folks simply skimmed over various accounts and came to his house....asking him where exactly this money came from. Well....he's not answering.
For several months, I've been following the Greece thing and the terrible woes that they've got. Frankly, I don't buy this 'broke' story.
If you go into Athens and drive around the city itself, there's tons of money moving around in the economy each day. Expensive motorcycles...sports cars from Germany....$250,000 tourist buses being operated.....Rolex watches being sold.....Greeks walking the streets in 1,000-Euro shoes....Europeans strolling through various shops and spending 300 Euros on t-shirts, fake statues from China, and expensive Greek sweets....etc.
Where does a guy get 937,000 Euro in one year? It's hard to say. Maybe he's selling dope on the side. Maybe he's got a unlicensed chauffeur service for VIPs. Maybe he's selling jewelry on the side that he imports quietly in from Egypt with no VAT. Maybe he pilots a boat for the ultra rich. Maybe he has a art shop in the tourist district of Athens.
The claim of being unemployed? Greek technology isn't sophisticated enough to figure out the guy's gimmick.....so if he doesn't volunteer the information.....I don't think they will figure his background out.
As for the 937,000 Euro? They will go back and look at 2013, 2012, etc. Bank records might go back ten years. If the guy never declared anything and has been unemployed for five years....with close to five million in some type of income.....they will establish the tax and then come to a fine (maybe ten-percent....maybe twenty-percent), and then a jail period. My humble guess is that it'll become something of a trend and start to worry folks.
If the guy is lucky.....he'll get to keep half the money.
As for hiding the 937,000 for next year? Well, this is the intriguing part of the whole thing. Guys will have to figure out the next way of moving your money around.....without banks being involved. You'd have to acquire a safe.....think ahead of the process.....and now have to worry about the government taking your money.
The Germans? Oh, they will sit there and just grin. They said there was cash there and there was no need for them to get into this Greek business. They've been proven correct.
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