Bailout Saga: Greeks should pay their taxes: IMF
Greece struggles to apply tough austerity overhaul in return for loans, but has made drastic cuts to public services.
LONDON:
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Christine Lagarde urged Greeks to pay their taxes, saying she is more concerned about sub-Saharan Africans in poverty than Greeks hit by the economic crisis.
Lagarde said Greeks should “help themselves collectively” by “all paying their tax”, adding that she thought “equally” about those deprived of public services by the crisis and those involved in tax avoidance.
Caught in a fifth straight year of recession, Greece is struggling to apply a tough austerity overhaul in return for loans, but has already made drastic cuts to public services. Greece in 2010 committed itself to a reform programme in return for hundreds of billions of euros in bailout funds from the European Union and the IMF to prevent a default.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2012.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Christine Lagarde urged Greeks to pay their taxes, saying she is more concerned about sub-Saharan Africans in poverty than Greeks hit by the economic crisis.
Lagarde said Greeks should “help themselves collectively” by “all paying their tax”, adding that she thought “equally” about those deprived of public services by the crisis and those involved in tax avoidance.
Caught in a fifth straight year of recession, Greece is struggling to apply a tough austerity overhaul in return for loans, but has already made drastic cuts to public services. Greece in 2010 committed itself to a reform programme in return for hundreds of billions of euros in bailout funds from the European Union and the IMF to prevent a default.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2012.