ECONOMY

Coalition chiefs discuss stance opposite troika with current and ex finance minister

As troika envoys held talks with a series of ministers on Friday to assess Greece’s progress in enforcing economic reforms, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called a meeting at the Maximos Mansion with his coalition partner Evangelos Venizelos as well as Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis and the latter’s predecessor Yannis Stournaras who is now Governor of the Bank of Greece.

According to sources, the key issues on the meeting’s agenda include the troika’s demands for reforms to proceed along with Greece’s insistence that some kind of tax relief must be offered to austerity-weary Greeks in the near future.

Addressing a conference organized by The Economist on Thursday night, Samaras called for the introduction of a 15 percent flat tax rate for corporate profits and for the top rate on income tax to be lowered to 33 percent from 42 percent. He also called for value added tax to be reduced from 23 percent to 15 percent in as many cases as possible, for the reduction of a special consumption tax on heating oil and the eventual abolition of a solidarity tax on income.

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