Greek Property Tax Bills: In The Post

Kathimerini reports

Wait until the Norwegians arrive!

When the ink runs out and the well runs dry.

Patrick Cockburn in The Independent, a different angle.

Legal appeal against property tax

Letter to Athens News from Finland, 17 October, 2011:

From Finland with reserve

I’VE JUST read in your newspaper that Greeks are worried about the food cost rising 3 percent in one year. How sad! I know it’s not normal people who have done all this to your country! It must be the system around you that made it possible.

Well, let me tell you all how much prices have gone up here in Finland. Total food costs are 20 percent higher than in other EU countries. Food prices have gone up 7 percent in one year, electricity 20 percent in one year, apartments /houses up to 70 percent in 10 years, bus tickets 27 percent in 5 years, fuel up 9 percent in one year, while alcohol and beer cost 70 percent more than in other EU countries.

We have to work until the age of 64 and 65. Our pensions after that are around 45 to 50 percent of the salary (whereas in Greece I believe it is 80 percent). We pay high taxes on almost everything we buy and own.

Sometimes it feels that the government is taxing also the air we breathe! Our tax system makes life very, very tight. And now the new government is planning to raise our taxes again!

However, we have little corruption.

Now I read that Greek people don’t want to pay these new solidarity and property taxes.

Your country has unpaid taxes worth 41bn euros. The capital outflow from January to July 2010 was 34bn euros and continues by 3bn-4bn every month. Now you have plans to build a new Formula 1 racetrack in the Peloponnese and a new cultural centre (opera, library) in Athens. Could someone tell me how this is all possible?

From my salary, that I earn by working four days a week, I’m afraid that after I’ve taken care of the housing costs (electricity, water, garbage, road dues, property tax, insurance etc), bills (like telephone, TV et al) and food and income tax (now 27 percent), not much has been left.

I always buy my clothes from the secondhand or flea market. There is no eating out, no movies, no holidays abroad in my life.

I love Greece, but...

Name withheld on request