While the average Greek family is struggling to deal with reduced salaries and higher taxes, there are many famous Greek singers who claim they have earned less in the past few years than people without a job. Greece’s crushing economic crisis has left nearly two million people out of work.
According to their tax statements, many of the popular singers earned nothing in 2008 or 2009 although they were giving interviews while wearing expensive clothes, caught by paparazzi on vacations on their yachts or flying to Paris, Milan and London. The Proto Thema newspaper wrote that singer Peggy Zina and her husband Yiorgos Lyras are among the most notorious tax evaders who collectively owe Greece $70 billion and have escaped with impunity, although their lawyer denied the report.
Ta Nea newspaper published a list of Greece’s most well-known singers and their annual earnings, as they declared to the Hellenic Tax Office, and it showed that some apparently did report what they made, but others did not. Yiannis Ploutarhos stated that he made some 1,489,180 euros during 2008-2009 (667,121 in 2008 and 822,059 in 2009.) Next comes Pashalis Terzis who earned 1,081,968 euros (609,355 in 2008 and 472,613 in 2009).
Notis Sfakianakis stated an income of 638,665 euros from 2008-09, (262,995 and 375,670 euros in 2008 and 2009 respectively), while Panos Kiamos said he earned 174,826 euros in 2008 and 213,560 in 2009, or 388,386 euros in total.
Anna Vissi , one of the country’s most famous singers, who represented Greece in the Eurovision song contest, said, however, that she made only 30,751 euros in 2008 and a paltry 3,223 euros the next year, according to her tax statement. She also said she has no property although she lives in a villa. Apostolia Zoi cried poverty too, saying she earned only 12,557 euros in 2009, and 12.15 euros for all of 2010, about what the rich spend for a bottle of mineral water at lunch.
Elli Kokkinou and Ioannis Kotsiras said they made, respectively, only 4,447 and 24,281 euros in 2008 but seemed to have stopped singing after that because they declared zero income in 2009.
(Source: Proto Thema)
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