Greek Tax Service: 25% of Greece GDP in unpaid taxes

A recent report from the EU Commission task force on Greece shows that Greece currently has approximately $80 billion in outstanding unpaid taxes. These unpaid taxes are reportedly due to tax avoidance and lack of compliance, things the rest of us call tax cheating.

The unpaid taxes represent 25% of Greece's gross domestic product. To put that into perspective, this would be like the U.S. having $3.75 Trillion of outstanding unpaid taxes. This is the equivalent of the IRS not collecting any tax revenue for 2010 and half of 2009.

I recently finished a very insightful article from October 2010 that gives good background on the Greek tax revenue shortfall and recommend it to anyone interested in the Greek debt and tax issues.

Update on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 1:47PM by Jess Monnette

The Greek government has published a list of more than 4,000 tax dodgers in an effort to shame them into paying up. 

From the New York Times article:

"The list published late Sunday includes the veteran crooner Tolis Voskopoulos with debts of nearly $650,000; Pavlos Psomiadis, the owner of a defunct insurance firm, with arrears of nearly $2 million; and Giorgos Batatoudis, a former soccer club president who owes more than $3 million. Greece is under pressure from foreign creditors to curb endemic tax evasion, a key barrier to its economic recovery."