ATHENS: The newly appointed anti corruption chief decided to investigate the wealthy tax defaulters in Greece, it believes ththatat these wealthy people may have at least €200,000 each in foreign banks.
Panagiotis Nikoloudis, vowing to crack down on widespread tax evasion, has widened his hunt for the so-called “tax cheats”.
In an interview, he said that the original list of 2,000 tax evaders, the so-called Lagarde List, which was drawn up by the IMF and handed to the Greece government in 2010, falls far short of the real number who are draining the country’s coffers.
“I’m not concerned about the so-called Lagarde list,” Nikoloudis said. “It’s just a footnote in this overriding bid to hunt down tax cheats. Most importantly, though, the money which the Greece state stands to rake in from that list, in connection to fines on undeclared incomes, is peanuts compared to what can be collected from this roster of 80,000 individuals.”
Around 4,500 of the 80,000 of those suspected of tax evasion have so far been audited, raising hopes that the Greece authorities will recover more than €3 billion in fines by the end of June. The finance ministry is currently considering hiring more tax collection officers, and Germany, Greece’s biggest creditor, has offered to send thousands of tax experts to assist the operation.
