Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-10-10

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] FinMin: Greece will meet its targets without fail

[01] FinMin: Greece will meet its targets without fail

"We cannot and must not return to the recipe that brought us to the crisis," he said. "This means that the country will be meeting its targets without fail."

"In the agreements with our partners, Greece must be united and issue a single voice. We do not have the luxury of sending the wrong messages to our partners," he added.

Among other things, he said that an agreement to relieve the tax burden is possible but only after Greece keeps its reformation targets.

The minister emphasised the fight against tax evasion, saying it was "the first time that the tax service operates on the basis of a strategic plan, which sets targets and indicators for audits and tax collection, which are evaluated quarterly; the number of tax auditors has increased by 400 pct and they will be further augmented by 30 pct within 2015, through ASEP," the state testing and hiring agency for the public sector.

Enumerating the progress in tax collection, he said that two audit centres had conducted over 1,400 checks within 2014 on large companies, high-income individuals, bank transfers and off shore companies. In the first seven months of the year, taxes amounting to 1.6 billion euros had been identified, and 2,500 checks conducted through 65 tax revenue departments in Greece that confirmed 300 million euros were owed.

Hardouvelis also said that about 415,000 companies and self-employed (OAEE) with gross earnings of up to 10,000 euros would be relieved of VAT in 2015.

Among other things he mentioned were the improvement of liquidity in 2015 and bank lending, and the first database for real estate, which would include the nearly 105,000 properties belonging to the state and its agencies.

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