June 23, 2011
Greeks seething after two years of belt-tightening reacted in anger Thursday against a new round of tax rises and spending cuts worth some 3.8 billion euros which they said would again hit honest taxpayers hardest.
Coming on top of a 10-15 percent reduction on pensions and salaries over the last year and a half, the raft of new measures announced by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos will cut average earnings by a further 3-4 percent, analysts said.
People on the streets of Athens, who have protested for weeks over the government's plan to carve out savings of 28 billion euros by 2015, were livid at the measures they said once again failed to tackle rampant tax evasion and corruption.
"These measures aren't fair. Shop owners who pay their taxes are treated the same way as those who don't know what a cash register looks like," said Kostas Batsoulis, 37, a restaurant owner in central Athens.
"It would be better to sack 10,000 civil servants rather than the 1 million private sector employees who are being sacrificed right now," he added.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment