Euclid Tsakalotos, the Greek finance Minister in an interview with the Guardian in December talked about the task of pursuing the elite for unpaid taxes. “Taxing the elite of oligarchs” he said is one of the most important issues that the average Greeks expects form the left-wing government. But Tsakalotos claimed the government, now a year in power, simply “had no time.”
Now at last, its seems some time was found – after the German state of North Rhine Westphalia sent to the government a list of large depositors in November and after a new law permitting the use of evidence that has been illicitly obtained passed through parliament last week – to crack down on high level cases of tax evasion.
Chief financial prosecutor Panayiotis Athanasiou and his team spent the holidays going through the list of 10,500 depositors at a Swiss branch of UBS to identify suspicious account activity.
They have reportedly found dozens of cases that merit further investigation to ascertain whether their assets were legally acquired and whether they have been subject to taxation.
Financial crimes prosecutors are now ready to sent dozens of summons to Greek depositors whose names appear on that list to explain the source of their assets.
The information passed on by the Germans concerns private individuals and companies from Greece with total savings of 3.9 billion Swiss francs (3.6 billion euros) in 2006 and 2.9 billion Swiss francs (2.67 billion euros) in 2008.
The finance minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Norbert Walter-Borjans, meanwhile, is expected in Athens on Saturday, when he is due to meet with Greek finance officials and sign a memorandum of cooperation for cracking down on tax evasion.
Kathimerini — Edited and additional material: Y Xamonakis
