Frantic to find revenues everywhere, except from tax evaders it seems, the Greek government is reportedly mulling a plan to put a tax on people who turned in their license plates because they couldn’t afford to keep a car.
The proposition is being criticized, even by some politicians, as a cock-eyed scheme to get money where there is none, much like putting a penalty on people who couldn’t afford to pay big tax hikes and would be taxed on a tax they didn’t have the money to pay.
Thousands of Greeks have taken their cars off the road and a reported one million have also given up paying insurance, with many driving without legal authorization. Big tax hikes in the price of gasoline have pushed the price of petrol to among the highest in Europe, nearing $10 a gallon, and led to the closing of some 2,200 gasoline stations, with many more expected.
Taxing unused cars is, for the time being only a proposition from the Finance Ministry as the government is ready to lower the boom again on workers, pensioners and the poor, with pensioners readying for a fourth cut in their benefits while military officers, doctors, judges and diplomats have been exempted so far but could see their pay cut 6-20 percent.
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