On property tax, education
Property tax
The new property and income tax changes announced by Finance Minister Venizelos are making me angry for one reason alone: Raising taxes on the millions of middle-class Greeks while failing to collect back taxes from those who refuse to pay. For those millions who work and pay their taxes, they are facing higher prices for goods with higher taxes added on, while they have to read reports that some 6,000 Greek firms owe the government some 30 billion euros. What is even more ridiculous about this is that it is state-owned OSE, the Hellenic Railways Organization, that owes the largest amount of taxes to the state. If the Greek government fails to collect every single euro of that huge sum that it is owed in taxes but continues to insist that the middle class continue to pay more taxes, then there is no justice for the middle class and the government is a complete failure. So the question in my mind keeps popping up: Why should some be made to pay while others are not?
Peter Kates
House tax?
What about foreigners who own a property in Greece for private use, and don’t have any income in Greece? We already have to send 1,000 euros per square meter and year, to Greece, to show that we can afford the house, even if we spend only 4-5 weeks per year in the summer in Greece. That is more than we spend on our house that we live in all year at home! Does Greece want us foreigners that have invested so much money and all the free time we can get to spend in your lovely country, to leave again? Hope that won’t happen….
Annika Bruveris
Therein lies part of the problem
?I’ve been trying to find a job for a year now and it’s impossible,? said Maria Kappa, a graduate of the School of Philosophy in Athens.
One of the issues facing Greece is a massive number of seemingly educated young people who have studied either philosophy or literature. In a mindless dash to get a university degree — any university degree — the country is full of people with education degrees that have little if any benefit to the real economy or society in general.
Brickina Wall
