Greece may privatize assets
Source: Agencies |
May 27, 2010, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
GREECE is considering privatizing state assets to chip away at a debt mountain that brought it close to bankruptcy, with the prime minister and his Cabinet also looking for ways to boost competitiveness at a meeting yesterday.
Faced with a bloated budget deficit and massive public debt, the center-left government has cut pensions and salaries, raised consumer taxes and declared war on tax evasion.
Many of the harsh austerity measures were taken to unlock a 110 billion euros (US$134 billion) rescue package of loans from other countries that use the euro and the International Monetary Fund.
The government has emphasized its crackdown on rampant tax evasion, with the finance ministry saying late Tuesday it had started a broad investigation of tax and customs officials after receiving a string of complaints over alleged bribery, forgery and smuggling.
The ministry said it had even located 234 finance ministry employees who failed to file income tax declarations in 2007 and 2008, and another 70 tax employees who appeared to own property whose value was far in excess of what they could reasonably be expected to have based on their income.
The 70 employees owned property with values ranging up to 3 million euros, while declaring annual incomes averaging just 50,830 euros, the ministry said, adding that it was investigating details of how the employees obtained the property.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
