The Libertarian Survivalist

This article outlines some actions that the Greek government is taking to fight its financial crisis. Wage and tax reform is a a great step for the very-left Greek government, but it contains an item that raised my eyebrows and is perhaps the pre-cursor of things to come in this country: no financial transaction between corporations and persons or other corporations above 1,500 euros is allowed to be completed on a cash basis. Only credit and debit cards may be used. This is an obvious attempt to prevent tax-evasion strategies in the underground economy, though it seems to elude the government of Greece that if such draconian and anti-privacy measures were not taken, perhaps those transactions they are trying to bring above ground and document would not have been made underground in the first place. This also means that anonimity of both parties to a transaction above 1,500 euros is effectively destroyed, with big brother able to account for every penny of your or your corporation’s pocketbook. Why the fuss? Well, suppose you wanted to work with a corporation on a corp-to-corp basis and wanted to give the corporation the write-off on the payment for your labor while keeping your income effectively underground. You incorporate and receive payments from the client corp to reap benefits of numerous tax reduction strategies, but now, since you bill semi-monthly and your total for each check is above 1,500 euros, you need a merchant account and direct IRS reporting of every penny coming in. Finally, guess what the answer is to the question of why should we care what the greeks do to get out of their crises? Maybe I’m wrong, but the Greek strategy is going to look mighty appealing to Washington when the US financial house of cards comes crashing down here on our shores!