Illegal fuel drains state coffers
While the financial crimes squad (SDOE) said yesterday that it discovered a gas station that distributed over 3.5 million liters of heating oil with fake invoices, the government warned that state coffers were suffering badly from the illegal trade in fuel and cigarettes. Economy and Finance Minister Giorgos Alogoskoufis said that VAT receipts for January and February had dropped by some 12 percent this year compared to last. He blamed the black market trade in cigarettes and particularly fuel for this drop in state income. An inspection by SDOE officers on a construction company in the Peloponnese yesterday reportedly revealed that the firm possessed illegal fuel tanks which contained some 36,000 liters of fuel purchased on the black market. The fuel had been allegedly supplied by a local gas station, which was found to have distributed a total of 3.6 million litres of heating oil with fake invoices. Officers said they also found 44 trucks and 26 construction machines that were using heating oil as fuel instead of diesel, which is illegal, as the former is not taxed as heavily as the latter. SDOE issued a statement yesterday saying that its top priority is to crack down on the illegal trade in fuel, building on some 5,000 checks that it carried out last year in this target area. Meanwhile, Chairman and CEO of the National Bank of Greece Takis Arapoglou warned yesterday that the government would need to put a tight control on its outlays as long as it has the excessive public deficit to deal with. Using the analogy of a private company, Arapoglou said it was inconceivable that the state should pay out dividends – in the form of higher wages or lower taxes – while it was not showing any profits.
