They say that Greece needs and has to raise their taxes

[LiberalArkie]

Step through some of these charts and see what it looks like.


http://www.compareallcountries.com/Greece/USA/Commercial_tax_rate/

I know the common thought is that the wealthy don't pay their taxes, but they don't over here either.

[brooklynite]

1. A big problem with Greece is that NOBODY pays their taxes

[LiberalArkie]

3. That is whats happens a lot over here. With all the exemptions and deductions, the big payers

end up getting refunds.

[Travis_0004]

5. He really means NOBODY

In greece cheating on taxes is a national sport.

In the USA, there are loopholes, and people exploit them, or lie, but its a very small percent. In Greece, just about everybody cheats.

Greece has an objective value tax. Its a tax on real estate. Basically if I buy a house for 500k, the objective value (which is lagging behind actual value) might be listed at 200k. If I fill out all my paperwork to buy the house, it will be reassesed at 500k, which is bad, since you have to pay more taxes. Instead you can get a loan for 200k, and pay the rest in cash. Or get a black market loan to pay the extra bit.

One study showed that in Greeces parliment of 300 people, EVERY SINGLE PERSON claimed their house purchase price was exactly the objective value their house was listed at. Since the objective value is outdated, this is nearly impossible, or as on Greek tax collector said "every single member of the Greek Parliament is lying to evade taxes."

There was a survey done of 150 doctors in a rich area. More than half claimed to make 15k or less. 34 claimed to make less than 13,300, which meant they paid no taxes at all. And this is an area with million dollar homes.

So I don't disagree with you that America has its share of tax cheats, but it is nothing like the scale of the problem in Greece.

[LiberalArkie]

6. Not to disagree, which I am not. But the Euro plan is

to raise the tax rate and cut pensions and retirement. To cut the health and sell off the assets. It just seems to me the same thing they want to do over here. Do touch the wealthy, just the 90%.

[Blue_Tires]

2. No, Greece needs to *collect* their taxes...Huge difference

[clarice]

4. Raising taxes will not help their economy, only stifle it. nt