HA! The legislator knows much better when a plain souvlaki is a plain souvlaki! A plain souvlaki grilled on the skewer consists of plain meat cubes. It is sold with with 13% Value Added Tax. However, as of today and the new V.A.T. hikes in effect, a plain souvlaki turns into a “processed product” if salt is added. Without regret, the legislator charges another 10% V.A.T. for the simple hand move that turns the plain souvlaki cubes into a delicacy.
This is a real fact in the real Greek surreal story of VAT hikes and Agreements with Creditors and never ending debt loaded with new debt and loans.
Rumors that another 10% VAT for black ground pepper, a 10% VAT for fragrant oregano and an additional 10% VAT for some splashes of fresh lemon juice are claimed to belong to the sphere of pure and sick phantasy. Legislators are not like that, aren’t they?
Fact is however, that they managed to implement a 10% VAT hike to Greeks’ most holly snack: the souvlaki. Although it should and is considered basic food and the cheapest option for dine out.
It’s the pinch of salt that makes the difference in taste and the wallet.
I have no idea whether the VAT will be 10% or 23%, if the customer says “just very little bit of salt” or whether customers will be allowed to bring their salt & pepper along in the souvlaki tavern.
I also have no idea about the VAT for Souvlaki wrapped in pitta bread with tomatoes, onions, parsley and tzatziki sauce. With all this craziness I wouldn’t be surprised if the VAT is 67% of something. Just kidding…
PS I just think of all the thousands souvlaki taverns and grills that opened amid the economic crisis as it was considered a damned sure business because “the Greek will never stop eating Souvlaki.”
I also think of all the low-pensioners who have a souvlaki-pitta bread as the cheapest lunch or dinner to still their hunger for just 2 euros.
Souvlaki in Australia is aprox: A$10
With an extra dollop of yoghurt it is A$11
Kali orixi
p.s.
I make the best souvlaki’s & hamburger’s in the world – at home.
Just make out of the whole of Greece a soya field and some islands full of weed to sell to the Uber-Europeans who will legalize it anyway in between the next 5 years; the latter alone will fill the 50 billion fund.
where do you take the water from? the Übereuropäer do not need Greek fields, they can go to Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and many other countries. Greece is just peanuts for them.
Nobody will smoke Chernobyl Grass, in the summer water often comes by ship and so there is resistance if rich bastards buy lonely islands and think they will get water from neighbouring islands
Exactly – That is why many tax rates are usually wrong 🙂
Make Gandi proud! March to the sea, it’s not too far!
Sea water is not salt.
The colonists unjustly taxed salt in India.
(India, credibly claims to have had the Pythagorean theorem first. )
I think it is quite possible that the United Kingdom considers Gahndis action as heroic to it’s subjects in India.
The UK has gone through this stupidity too. It is neoliberal incompetence and lack of dealing with the real world. In one famous case, the same food product (a Cornish pastie) was tax-free at room temperature and with 23% VAT if warmed up. Obviously, people refused to buy them warmed up — and this malakia (if I remember correctly) came from the prime minister himself, who thought it very sensible.
The problem is that our European politicians are mentally deficient: their brains do not function correctly, but they have been programmed with a special program. This convinces them that they are extremely clever, always right, and should ignore both experts and the ordinary population. Unfortunately for us, they are some of the least educated and most stupid people around — with their heads full of sawdust (or something smellier).
It’s time for a revolution, but the sawdust infection has already spread to much of the general population.
it’s not the politicians it’s their technocrats
Not always. The homo politicus becomes more and more dependent on the technocrats and their “wisdom”,particularly in international affairs and international organizations . Having timely the right paper on one’s hands, that is his art. “Sprachregelungen” have replaced free speach. The Greek polititians are a species sui generis, of course.
The answer sounds simple: sell plain souvlaki at 13% VAT to customers and put free condiments on the table so that patrons can season their food to taste.
🙂
In the end, all that this stupidity from the Troika will do is convince Greeks to avoid all taxes and state controls, and it will make the country look even less like Germany and rather more like Egypt or somewhere. The only other option would be a military dictatorship to collect the VAT more efficiently. I guess the Germans would approve of that, though.
The picture of 5000 German troops escaping from molotov rains into the water and sinking in Pireus gots its moments of pleasure.
you are both so ….
:-))