Greece considers Special Tax on Bank Transactions to avoid pension cuts

The Greek government is allegedly considering to impose a special tax on bank transactions in order to avoid further cuts into main pensions as demanded by the country’s creditors.  The government’s alleged thought have been revealed by daily Ta NEA, at a time when Greece and creditors keep exchanging ‘negotiation’ emails on pensions reforms and just days before the Greeks will have to accept painful cuts in pensions and new terms & conditions for retirement.

According to state ERT TV, the tax will be imposed to bank transactions voer 1,000 euro and it will be something like 1 per mille or 1 ‰.

I am 99% sure, the creditors will reject this “equivalent measure”. I think, I heard, this special tax would be imposed to fill the pensions gap for 2016. Not sure, I heard right though. With so many taxes around, I feel kind of dizzy.

For the last few weeks and every other day, I have been reading scenarios about the future of pensions in Greece.  I have no clue. Therefore I try to avoid writing about all these horrible scenarios.

Fact is: with unemployment at 25%, with one in two Greek young ones without work, with part-time jobs flourishing and black labor without social contributions, whatever the creditors will impose to Greek pensions reform…. if they do not take into account these 4 factors, the social insurance funds will have dried out in a couple of years. And yes, pensions will not be higher than 400 euro per month if the monthly salaries are around 500, maximum 700 euro.

PS I felt uncomfortable over Christmas. Nobody asked me to pay some kind of new or old tax for 2 whole days.