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11 July 2012
Greece: Corrupt Tax Inspectors Get 70-Year Jail Term – Then Released
Andy Dabilis
GreekReporter
In the shadow of another report on tax evasion – this one using bank records – that shows tax cheats are robbing Greece blind of critical revenues, seven retired and active tax officers, including four high-ranking administrators, were sentenced to more than 70 years in jail for embezzlement of up to 28 million euros ($34.3 million) – then promptly released on bail.
The newspaper Kathimerini reported that the convicted were granted conditional release, but authorities would not release their names despite the seriousness of the crime.
Their case went before a three-judge panel after investigation by financial crimes prosecutor Grigoris Peponis launched in January into whether their ownership of large real-estate holdings and their participation in off-shore companies was legal or the product of embezzlement and graft.
According to a report in Ethnos, the tax officials first came under suspicion in 2001 after a retired inspector, Aliki Kyriakaki, made claims that she had come under pressure from certain members of the group to reduce tax fines against a large company that she had been auditing and found to have arrears of 36 million euros, or $44.2 million.
She said they offered to write off the debts if they were paid bribes.
She said their tactics to keep her silent included having her disciplined numerous times on specious charges, for which she was cleared completely by an administrative court. She had refused to work with her colleagues and said she had become a whistle-blower and revealed the corruption.
In 2001, she filed suit against “all responsible parties” in the graft ring which led to their being arrested.
One of several luxury villas in affluent Attica suburbs owned by the members of the graft ring. (Photo/Kathimerini)
The seven suspects were twice exonerated by an appeals court before the case was reopened by the Supreme Court on the findings of Peponis’s investigation.
According to the Ethnosreport, the group used the graft money to buy luxurious villas in Attica and a hotel on the island of Skopelos, as well as to open off-shore companies.
Speaking to Ethnos, Kyriakaki said, “It took 11 years of fighting, and I am not about to stop here.” As her lawyer suggested, more charges will be investigated in connection with the embezzlement ring.
Nearly 200 alleged tax cheats have been rounded up in recent months as the government, desperate for cash and relying on international welfare aid, has been trying to collect revenues, but no high-level figures had been prosecuted.
On July 11, police in Attica arrested three people for tax arrears of more than 9 million euros, or $11 million, including the unnamed manager of an unidentified company charged with owing 6.5 million euros, or $7.98 million, in unpaid taxes. Tax evaders are costing Greece some $70 billion but have generally gone unpunished.
In the United States, economists Nikolaos Artavanis, Adair Morse and Margarita Tsoutsoura produced a paper that examined bank records instead of unreliable tax returns in which many Greeks under-report their income. The paper estimated that the size of Greek tax evasion accounted for roughly half the country’s budget shortfall in 2008 and one-third in 2009.
Greek banks have more reliable information as financial data is essential to getting loans and credit cards. Comparing bank data with government data, the authors found that the true income of the average Greek person is about 1.92 times larger than what is actually reported to the government.
In 2009, that shrunk the tax base by about $34 billion. Assuming that money was taxed at a 40 percent rate, that was 31 percent of the country’s budget deficit.
http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2012/07/11/greece-corrupt-tax-inspectors-get-70-year-jail-term-then-released/
11 July 2012
Greece: Corrupt Tax Inspectors Get 70-Year Jail Term – Then Released
Andy Dabilis
GreekReporter
In the shadow of another report on tax evasion – this one using bank records – that shows tax cheats are robbing Greece blind of critical revenues, seven retired and active tax officers, including four high-ranking administrators, were sentenced to more than 70 years in jail for embezzlement of up to 28 million euros ($34.3 million) – then promptly released on bail.
The newspaper Kathimerini reported that the convicted were granted conditional release, but authorities would not release their names despite the seriousness of the crime.
Their case went before a three-judge panel after investigation by financial crimes prosecutor Grigoris Peponis launched in January into whether their ownership of large real-estate holdings and their participation in off-shore companies was legal or the product of embezzlement and graft.
According to a report in Ethnos, the tax officials first came under suspicion in 2001 after a retired inspector, Aliki Kyriakaki, made claims that she had come under pressure from certain members of the group to reduce tax fines against a large company that she had been auditing and found to have arrears of 36 million euros, or $44.2 million.
She said they offered to write off the debts if they were paid bribes.
She said their tactics to keep her silent included having her disciplined numerous times on specious charges, for which she was cleared completely by an administrative court. She had refused to work with her colleagues and said she had become a whistle-blower and revealed the corruption.
In 2001, she filed suit against “all responsible parties” in the graft ring which led to their being arrested.
One of several luxury villas in affluent Attica suburbs owned by the members of the graft ring. (Photo/Kathimerini)
The seven suspects were twice exonerated by an appeals court before the case was reopened by the Supreme Court on the findings of Peponis’s investigation.
According to the Ethnosreport, the group used the graft money to buy luxurious villas in Attica and a hotel on the island of Skopelos, as well as to open off-shore companies.
Speaking to Ethnos, Kyriakaki said, “It took 11 years of fighting, and I am not about to stop here.” As her lawyer suggested, more charges will be investigated in connection with the embezzlement ring.
Nearly 200 alleged tax cheats have been rounded up in recent months as the government, desperate for cash and relying on international welfare aid, has been trying to collect revenues, but no high-level figures had been prosecuted.
On July 11, police in Attica arrested three people for tax arrears of more than 9 million euros, or $11 million, including the unnamed manager of an unidentified company charged with owing 6.5 million euros, or $7.98 million, in unpaid taxes. Tax evaders are costing Greece some $70 billion but have generally gone unpunished.
In the United States, economists Nikolaos Artavanis, Adair Morse and Margarita Tsoutsoura produced a paper that examined bank records instead of unreliable tax returns in which many Greeks under-report their income. The paper estimated that the size of Greek tax evasion accounted for roughly half the country’s budget shortfall in 2008 and one-third in 2009.
Greek banks have more reliable information as financial data is essential to getting loans and credit cards. Comparing bank data with government data, the authors found that the true income of the average Greek person is about 1.92 times larger than what is actually reported to the government.
In 2009, that shrunk the tax base by about $34 billion. Assuming that money was taxed at a 40 percent rate, that was 31 percent of the country’s budget deficit.
http://www.setyoufreenews.com/2012/07/11/greece-corrupt-tax-inspectors-get-70-year-jail-term-then-released/
