Now I am really angry! My face has turned red and grey smoke comes out of my ears and nostrils. My blood pressure has skyrocketed and I walk up and down in my flat like a maniac. I am about to explode – literally. But before that, I plan a last action: to officially declare the war to Germany, the German Finance Ministry and the German technocrats. Yes, a war! The Basil War!
Reason for my anger is that today I bought a bunch of fresh Parsley and a bunch of fresh large leaf Basil.When I came home and emptied my groceries bag I made the mistake to take a look at the receipt. A shock! A shock for every Greek who grew in a country where every home, every balcony and every yard has at least one pot of small leaf basil, large leaf basil, flat leaf basil, curly leaf basil, summer basil, winter basil, call-it-what-you-want basil.
Parsley has 13% Value Added Tax
Arugula (rocket salad) has 13% Value Added Tax
Basil has 23% Value Added Tax
Why two types of traditional Greek herbs have different Value Added Tax? And thus with a difference of whole 10 percent?
Because the creditor’s technocrats who sent to Greece the list with the Value Added Tax increases – item by item – have no idea about Greek culture and eating habits? Because the German Finance Ministry technocrats of solid Kraut Salad and good old Boiled Potatoes consider Basil as gourmet herb used for ‘imported’ cuisine habits like Caprese Salad and Spaghetti al Pesto?
According to creditors’ demands, Value Added Tax in food items increased as of July 16th and passed by the Greek Parliament as the first set of “prior actions”. In creditors’ logic and revenue increasing goal, the Basil with 23% V.A.T. was a prior and top priority action.
The creditors’ new V.A.T. that increased in food items from 13% to 23%, triggered an outcry and occasionally a loud laughter.
A plain skewer of pork or chicken cubes (souvlaki) has 13% V.A.T. but 23% when salt is added. At the same time salt has 13% V.A.T.
Plain pasta gets 13% V.A.T but stuffed pasta as in the case of Tortellini get 23% V.A.T. even if not imported but Made in Greece.
So, what makes the difference in Value Added Tax is whether the item is “raw/plain” or “processed”?
No, it is not! Plain yoghurt has 13% V.A.T., that is the same VAT as yoghurt with sugar, flavors, fruits etc. The same is valid to all short of cheese.
Maybe there is no difference in diary products? HA! Maybe it has to do with the fact whether the product is imported or not, like in the case of fresh or frozen beef meat 23% and chicken, pork, lamb at 13%? No!
Plain Milk has 13% V.A.T., but milk with cocoa has 23% – another painful discovery I did today. Because cocoa has 23% V.A.T.? Yes, that’s the only answer: that if a food item contains ingredients with higher V.A.T. then the total VAT is higher. But again, this applies to some items and not to all.
Back to Basil… It’s not only the so-called Kings’ herb that got slammed by an incredible and illogical V.A.T. hike. Also the tea of the poor, the Τσάι του Βουνού (Mountain Tea) that grows on each and every mountain of Greece got 23%, as well as the equally modest Chamomile that grows on every inch of free soil through out the spring all over the country, cities included. Sage has got also 23% as well as herb Artemisia and Mastic. And, of course, carob that used for decades in Greece as food for the pigs until the new vegetarian-vegan wave upgraded it to one of the “craft foods.”
So, what’s the explanation for all this V.A.T. nonsense? There is no logical explanation except that the creditors most likely “drew the VAT for the food items out of the hat” as someone commented on Twitter. The Value Added Tax list came directly from the three Institutions already towards the end of June.
KTG does not have the VAT list for the food items, but has obtained the 11-page document sent by the Troika Institutions to Athens giving instructions on how to deal with the new austerity measures, the prior actions concerning V.A.T. hikes, pension cuts, benefits cuts and all possible cuts.
Apart from the unedited text sent to Greeks, the Institutions give also instructions on how Athens should deal with the issue.
According to Kathimerini of 25. June 2015: the V.A.T. increase in food would separate food items in two categories: in raw food 13% and in processed food 23% . The aim was to achieve revenues of €1.8 billion towards €1.36 billion of the Greek proposal that wanted to maintain food items mainly at low V.A.T.
Based on European Union Directive 852/2004 on Food Safety and Regulation of raw & processed food, also milk, bread and oil is processed food. However, due to “safety ruling” to sell milk “unpackaged” would violate the same EU regulation.
Quiz:
Find the raw vs processed food difference between a bunch of Parsley and a bunch of Basil.
Anyway, in the same list of V.A.T.-freaks I read also “insulin, gluten 23%”, as if we buy insulin and gluten as food items…
Equally out of this world is the V.A.T. in nuts: plain nuts have 13%, but roasted or salted nuts have 23%.
When I asked for a logical explanation for the Parsley-Basil VAT difference on Twitter, a lot of people living outside Greece and who know Basil only as one of the ingredients of Pesto, found the 23% VAT ‘logical’ claiming Basil was luxury and nothing for the masses. And that therefore that 23% was justified. Little do they know… Luxury salad Arugula has 13% V.A.T.
If I wanted, I could understand that Basil, Sage, Chamomile and Carob considered ‘luxury’ in the countries of Middle and North Europe, where the most aromatic herbs growing there are heather and winter savory. But what is ‘luxury’ in one country can be in daily use in another.
PS I wonder whether the German technocrats have any idea whether the pine nuts in pesto are being used raw or roasted, salted or unsalted and therefore they change the VAT according to the kitchen chef’s daily mood.
Why do I blame the Germans for the V.A.T. craziness? I have my reasons…
They used to drop bombs on you, but they always knew the Basil would get you!
satanic!
Can’t you find some flowerpots and grow your own basil and parsley? I do.
I do that for more than 15 years + with success. This year, I couldn’t. but at the end, a report came out of it
@KTG, I believe you only have the local Greek bureaucracy to thank for the arbitrary VAT rates for food (although one can never be 100% certain with any bureaucracy). You reference to Kathimerini point out that during the negotiations (specifically, on June 24) the creditors counter-proposed to have the 13% / 23% VAT rate divide based on straightforward criteria — non-processed / processed food. It was the Greek government that insisted on the basic / non-basic food distinction that week, which (as anyone could easily predict) is pretty subjective. In the end, the Greek government prevailed. Besides, I would be very surprised if the creditors actually had to approve an itemized list. The Greek government, however, had to provide an overall VAT revenue increase of 1% of the GDP on annual basis, so basil producers might have been the victim.
IMHO, taxes have to be as universal as possible to avoid confusion, cost and corruption. It seems the creditors share that concern when they talk about “implementation risk”. However, politicians like ambiguity, which allows them to pick winners and losers.
BTW, food in Germany is not that bad these days. Even in a factory canteen you can often get olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a salad dressing option.
This reminds me of an even stronger ideologically-driven position of the Greek government — to insist that 93-94 percent of the extra revenue should come from new taxes, and very little — from government spending cuts. The creditors (especially, the IMF) objected to that as both something that would impede growth of the Greek economy and also something that would be difficult to implement (with tax evasion being so prevalent). However, the Greek government insisted it’s not foreigners’ decision how to achieve the overall primary budget surplus that was agreed early on, and largely prevailed. It seems, now Greeks would blame the greater tax increases on the foreigners anyway.
What else as until 2030 Greece has to pay to her oh so nice helping friends and partners 150 billion interest “BACK”.
“Helping” with 50 billion and charging 150 billion profit drives only total morons not nuts. Don’t cut the debt cut the interest and then Greece could recover as the 50 billion is already paid.
VAT on food is criminal, no matter what percentage it is charged at. It is hiiting the poorest where it hurts most, while those who can afford it it can write it off “expenses”, or use some other creative accountancy trick to end up not paying…
Just to highlight the absurdity of the whole thing. VAT stands for Value Added Tax, being a tax levied on the value one adds to a product when selling that product. So, you buy a car for 50.000, sell it after driving it for a few years later for 15.000 and 23% VAT is charged on this 15k. Which value was added to the price of this car?
In Ireland, you either pay 23% or 0% on antibiotics. What’s the difference? An antibiotic cream comes in at 23% VAT, a pill at 0%. So VAT is determined by the way in which you take the anti-biotic, Oral or Non-Oral and is in in fact classified in the list as such…
these bureaucrats make Alice in Wonderland sound positively sane.
“Criminal” is a very strong word. Of course, people’s ideology impacts very strongly their attitude on taxation. For example, the Democrats in the US are against the introduction of national VAT or sales tax for the same reason you are against it — it is regressive since the poor _on average_ spend higher percentage of their income, while richer people tend to save more. On the other hand, Republicans are against any tax increases and they are afraid a change in the system of taxation will be used by the government to collect more taxes. As a result, there is no VAT in the US. (There are sales taxes in most states, but the rates tend to be much lower than EU VAT rates).
More to the point: There is no doubt poor are more sensitive to the cost of foodstuffs. Intuitively, the lower the VAT on such items, the lower the prices. Surprisingly, I was not able to find such correlation within the EU; the good old economic concept of supply and demand is much more powerful. There are 5 countries in the EU, where the standard (highest) VAT rate applies to all foodstuffs: Bulgaria (20%), Denmark (25%), Estonia (20%), Lithuania (21%), and Slovakia (20%). All of them, except Denmark had lower food prices in 2012 compared to the EU average (indexed at 100): Bulgaria (67), Denmark (106), Estonia (94), Lithuania (75), Slovakia (85). Greek food price index at 104 was almost as high as Denmark’s, even though the Greek VAT on foodstuffs was much lower. (I found the data on the Eurostat web site ec.europa.eu). All in all, it looks like over time lower VAT rates help the players in the food supply chain to increase their profit margins more than the poor to get cheaper eats.
You continue to write bizarre homespun explanations of economic phenomena – like reinventing the wheel all the time. The simple fact is that historically higher VAT rates are correlated with higher income tax rates are correlated with extensive welfare states, in Scandinavia.
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The cost of food production varies massively according to climate, terrain, food type and production costs. The CAP is supposed to help standardise production costs with subsidies and controls. In the retail sector, the markets are oligopolistic and even monopsonistic — resulting in a mess that is very far from the theoretical models of free market competition. In general, retail prices are shaped by the structure of demand and retail — and not at all by supply factors. You might describe them as rigged markets.
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So, when you start talking about comparative food prices, you may as well talk about the cost of living on Mars versus PLuto. What matters are changes in a single country, and how those changes impact on the society. Eliphant chose an appropriate word for what is being done with VAT on food — criminal. The impact on a society where many people cannot afford to eat is massive, and amounts to a declaration of war on their right to life.
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We can only hope that future generations will hold to legal account the criminals who have imposed this on the Greek people. There is a good chance of a future European tribunal of crimes against humanity, with the Germans leading the list of indicted. T
Criminal is nothing too strong… Food is a basic need AND right for everybody and should not ever be taxed under any circumstances or pretext. If the EU wants more money (and VAT is an EU tax, not a sovereign tax), then go and increase the tax the BMW’s, Lexus and other rich man’s toys, put 1000% VAT on arms and ammunition, remove “tax-breaks” for the rich (usually disguised as “business incentives”), increase tax alcohol and tobacco 10 fold, but do NOT tax basic human rights and needs. That is indeed criminal, especially when the alternatives are not even considered, leave alone implemented simply because they hit “the wrong” people (ie the rich).
Last year I purchased from Bunnings, Gaffney St Coburg, which is just a few blocks from my house.
Only a small Basil plant – because I know it will grow quickly – it looked diffrent – it was like a shrub – in fact it is a runner – it spreads – it is just the same basil & maybe a little bit sweeter (?) – you cut it back & it pops up again & spreads – delicious with tomato’s in a salad & no more seeds – it is 100 times bigger today than when I bought it.
I also grow parsley on mass & eat it as a salad green & not just a garnish.
The supermarkets in Australia sell at very high prices & especially meat, what does nt sell is literally thrown away into land fill. It is a case of “pay our prices or go without”
Q: HOW ARE THEY ABLE TO DO THIS ?
So I sat on a bench at Coles & wondered “how do the supermarkets make a profit”
The electricitty runns 24/7
the lights
the fridges
the freezers
the alarms run 14/7
then there are the registers – they use massive amounts of electricity.
Q: HOW DO THEY PAY FOR ALL OF THIS (?)
A: NOT FROM SALES
(?) THEY GET IT FOR FREE –
Go sit in your local supermarket & cost its running expenses.
THE FOOD DELIVERY TO THE PEOPLE IS SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
ONCE UPON A TIME THE GREEDY LITTLE PIGGIES THOUGHT THAT THEY WOULD “MAKE A KILLING” IF THEY TOOK OVER THE FOOD DELIVERY TO THE PEOPLE FORM GROWING THE FOOD IN THE THIRD WORLD TO SELLING IT AT THEIR MASSIVE SUPERMARKTS & MALLS.
Alas – IT HAS ALL BLOWN UP IN THEIR FACES.
So how do they quit the business ?
Well they can’t, where will we buy our food from.
THIS IS THE TRUEST STORY YOU HAVE EVER HEARD:
*
Now I want to tell you the OLIVE OIL STORY.
About 4 – 5 years ago ( my memory is not fantastic any more) a 4 litre tin of MORO Olive Oil cost A$48.00 at Coles – but at all stores in general.
I started to wonder WHY olive oil was DOUBLE & MORE the price of Canola Oil (
… ?)
From the clearing of the land
the fertalizing of the land
the seeding
the watering
the airial pesticide spray
the harvesting
the squeezing of the tiny seeds
to the bottel
to the suprtmarket shelf
IT COST MORE TO GROW CANOLA & BRING IT TO THE SUPERMARKET SHELF.
So why do we pay double the ptice for Olive Oil ?
Where you clear the land
plant the 7 year old trees
THEN
for the next 100 years – to 1.000 years you have olives.
the olive fruit is large so less work.
and extra virgin cold pressed oilve oils should be cheaper still.
*
So
I emalied this QUESTION to Austin Cline the expert atheist NY
To Father Robert Maguire a celebraty Catholic Priest in Victoria.
And to several other websits around the world.
PRESSURE WAS BROUGHT TO BEAR AND –
Within 2 months the price of a 4 litre tin of Olive Oil at my local Coles store dropped to A$23.00 – today it is still only A$28.00.
What I discovered much later is that the Australian Olive Growers were going broke & were about to PULL UP THEIR OLIVE TREES.
The CHEAP OLIVE OIL Imports were being sold for more than the 100% QUALITY of Australian olive oil & Australian growers could not compete.
RUBBISH SOLD AT TOP DOLLAR.
The Australian Olive Growing Industry was saved & shortly there after Australia was exporting Quality Olive Oill to Spain who were experiencing shortages.
I emailed the Vatican in Rome to tell them about Father Maguires valiant efforts & the magnificent results.
At first sight the story seems to be absurd indeed. As my wife and myself are lovers of Greek (and Turkish) cuisine I tried to elucidate this issue by means of my wife’ excellent cooking-books. Here is the result: There can be no doubt, parsley is the number one everywhere in Greece. As far as basil is concerned it seems to be more tricky. Although it is a traditional Greek herb it seems that
-Origano
-Thymian
-Dill
-Laurel leaves
-Mint
-rosmarin
are somehow more important than basil.
If all these traditional herbs and all the others you can still find in Pilion were taxed equaly with 13 pc I think everybody could be happy. Of course it would be better to have no VAT at all for the hungry Greeks, but not for the rich tourists that bring the Euros to Athens and could afford to pay even a higher tax. Bonne Appetit!
PS: Oh! What terrible fault in my French! Appetit ” is m. so the correct grammer is “bon appetit” and not “bonne appetit” although the pronunciation is the same.
‘bone’ appetit 🙂
Vous n’etes pas un francais??!
50 pc only, the other 50 pc is German, so it seems I have got two lives or souls, a latin and teutonic one – fighting against each other from time to time. To which side belongs the head and the heart thats the question I was not able to answer till today.
Ah, a strange combination of course — Latin-Teutonic. I am Celtic (Welsh) rather than English, with a degree of Hellenophilia. (Lawrence of Arabia was like this, but with the Arab world.)
you cannot sell same items to tourists with higher VAT. and I come again: Basil is common in GR as it is chamomile and Mountain Tea also with 23%
If you are in Pelion look at the windowsills and balconies of houses and you will see potted basil everywhere – because it keeps off the flies. This is the most common use. No house is without it.
and the mosquitos
Any plant that keeps away politicians and other spoofers?
yes, yet to be cultivated! so far, only Garlic helps against Vampires
Hold on. It wasn’t the wicked Germans (sorry – EU) doing this. Their 13%/23% was based on the distinction ‘non-processed/processed food’. The Hellenic Gov’t (as someone’s already observed) negotiated for a basic/non-basic 13%/23% VAT distinction, which is fine – so long as you get the categories right – basic for instance, should be feta, eggs, milk, coffee, filo pastry, basil, camomile tea, lemons, oranges; non-basic should be – say – mace, pine-nuts, turmeric (things that by and large Greeks don’t use at not very much), dragon fruit, grapefruit, mango, kippers, marmite, cheddar, – you get the idea. Lin says the reason the gov’t put basil in ‘non-basic’ is that the distinction was “probably made by Greek men who, except for the manly spitting of lamb at Easter, don’t do time in the kitchen” (:))
Greek men? or foreign men working for Greek men… BTW: coffee is at 23% and so is tea, cocoa etc
Among the basics you forgot the most important ones for the Greek gourmands of today: water, chorta and koulury, plus olive oil, wine and figs for many unaffordable now.
Why should a result of blackmail make any sense? The extortion-ring said: “If you don’t conform and let FRAPORT make 15 billion – tax-free – profits out of your nicely renovated “regional” airports and clean our islands from useless Greeks by raising VAT – so that we can put our pensioners there – there won’t be no more tourism in Greece as we just let 2 million tourists get stranded without any money.”
How stupid that Kalamata-Grass is still tax-free…
Next on the Troika’s wish list: the complete eradication of herbs growing in the wild and on people’s balconies. Growing your own herbs equates tax evasion. Can’t have that.
of course!
You say it. But you do no need the Troika for that as long as you have Greek trade unions. Do-it-yourself was never excluded from social security contributions in Greece. probably it was never paid, but was often used to put you under pressure.
Don’t shout too loud… there are plenty of examples of people being taken to court, fined, and having their gardens destroyd because “growing your own vegetables” does not comply with authority “code” on the appearance of their gardens. Check out one Denise Morrison from the city of Tulsa who had a garden with over 100 varieties of edible plants destroyed because it breached “city code”…
Big brother is truely watching…
Did it ever crossed your mind that the supermarket might have made a mistake?