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Victoria Mindova

From this week, all bank branches in Greece will start issuing tax cards for citizens. These will be used for purchases of all goods and services in the country. The tax card has two main objectives: the first is to gather information on the minimum turnover of various merchants and companies in the country and the second, according to the Ministry of Finance, is to facilitate the collection of data used for citizens’ cost accounting for tax purposes.

In 2010, Greece enforced a law under which individual persons have to account for 25% of their declared annual income through receipts for their expenditure. This percentage is expected to increase next year, but it is not yet clear what its new value will be. Holding the tax card does not exempt the owner from collecting receipts. The card sends information, on the value of purchases made by a person, directly to the Directorate General "Information" at the Ministry of Finance. Its aim for the most part is to relieve the burden on the tax authorities, but not that on the citizens themselves.

The card is personal and contains the tax number of the person, company or entity offering the relevant product or service, without specifying its type, and the value of the transaction. It is issued by the banks in Greece but it is not related to the banking system and can not be used as a debit or credit card. All citizens can go to any neighbourhood branch of any Greek bank and obtain the tax card for free against his or her tax number. Then, to activate the card, the person has to send an SMS to 54053, which is the number of the Directorate General "Information" at the Ministry of Finance. The message should contain the individual’s tax number, an empty space and then the 19-digit number written on the tax card. The SMS costs € 0.011. Another method of activating the tax card is through online registration at the Directorate General "Information" website:http://link.minfin.gr/karta.

The tax card is compatible with the Point of Sales-POS devices in shops in order to account for the purchases made. At present, issuing the new card is not mandatory, but the government is planning on introducing it to all citizens at the beginning of 2012.

GRReporter did its own research on how ordinary citizens view the introduction of a tax card. The overall opinion is that the measure is irrelevant and inapplicable to many of the shops in the country. In addition, all respondents greatly distrust the ability of the government to protect the personal data entered into the card.

"This tax card is another nuisance of the political governance in Greece and I will not have one unless required by law," explicitly stated a 38-year-old employee of a private company. According to her, the government's plan has serious omissions, mainly because many shops do not have POS systems, such as bakeries, markets, small private shops, which are not part of large chains. Using it will be a problem for those self-employed as masters, dentists, doctors and many others who issue receipts but do not accept credit card payments. "Its existence is meaningless, given that we must continue to collect receipts for the purchases, despite the fact that they are recorded digitally in the card," said the woman.

She believes that the card enables the government and other institutions to "look" not only at the actual transactions, but also at the type of products or goods that people are buying, which could be used for purposes other than tax reporting. This largely reminds her of the big brother from George Orwell’s 1984 and she stresses that the government has no reliable way of guaranteeing the preservation of personal data.

Almost all the citizens we managed to talk to share the same concern. "The tax number of every citizen in Greece is used for all activities related to the public administration and financial system in the country. If the name, surname and tax number fall into the wrong hands, there is always the chance that we can become victims of fraud, “said a 32-year-old insurance company employee. She also believes that this is a half-way measure, and instead of forcing the tax services to start carrying out serious inspections of the Greek enterprises and traders, the government wants to make the people take on the role of inspectors. The young woman is adamant that she will not acquire a tax card for the moment because she believes that this measure will be short-lived and she suggests that it will soon be revoked due to its ineffectiveness.

A similar comment was made on the new card by a young fitness instructor. "If they make me, I will have a tax card, but since the law is not yet in force I will not take the trouble of running to the bank just to do the government a favour," said the young man. In his opinion, the measure is a complete failure, or just another way of spending money in vain in difficult times and of withdrawing money from ordinary people. "They say it is free, but someone still pays for it. Where does this money come from? Are they cutting pensions and salaries in order to issue cards to help them impose even higher taxes on us?" he asked rhetorically.

The only one who was in favour of holding the tax card was a bartender in a metropolitan establishment. He, however, drew attention to another difficulty of the next "innovation" of the Greek government. "I have no problem with the idea of submitting my personal data to obtain a tax card. It will be even better for me – it will make it easier for me to calculate and count fewer receipts, when the time for the tax return comes. However, what about my grandmother in the village, who has two properties and still has to file a tax return?" he said with obvious irony. Sending an SMS is an impossible mission for most elderly citizens and a fair number of people do not know how to use the Internet. The Directorate General "Information" at the Ministry of Finance has provided only these two ways of activating the tax card. Furthermore, it will be useless in villages, small towns and some islands, because there are no POS devices there.