Go Greek For A Week – Big Question Unanswered

A TV station in the UK called Chanel 4 did a TV series called Go Greek For A Week

The program highlighted some of the quirks of tax avoidance in Greece (which may or may not be correct)

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The theme of the program seemed to me the English were “shocked” that people could avoid paying taxes by working off the books, by invoicing people lower that the actual cost of services and so on and so forth.

Assuming that what the program showed about Greece was correct and given how shocked the English people were of the ways they were told Greeks behave and how morally wrong the methods in the program were, Go Greek For A Week did not answer or ask a very important question

Why is it right that a government can threaten people to pay it money with the threat of physical force?

If the benefits of the service people get from the government are so obvious and such good value, why does the government feel the need to have to enforce tax collection with the threat of physical violence?

This question is not dealt with in the program at all.

Given how paying taxes are seen as the “morally” right thing to do and how the effects of not paying taxes would be bad for everyone the program does not touch upon why, if the benefits of paying taxes are so obvious, why does the government need to threaten its own citizens in order to take their money?

The behaviour of government appears to be more in line with that of the mafia, ie extortion. Extorting money from people by the use of the threat of force.

Something else that is not covered by the program is how, if tax avoidance is so widespread in Greece, do the citizens of Greece pay more taxes than people in the UK.

Government tax revenue in Greece is over 30% of GDP when in the UK government tax revenue is in the low 20’s% of GDP.

For the program to give something more than a shallow perspective of Greek culture it should analyse why taxes are so much although to be fair, the last part of episode 3 does go into the background of the Greek government actions and does go some way to explain why things are the way they are.

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