Criticism of the government on the occasion of the submission of the 2024 budget is exercised by PASOK with its announcement, speaking of unfair treatment of the underprivileged while middlemen and executives of multinationals are profiting.

The entire PASOK announcement:

After four years of New Democracy rule and the 2024 budget shows that the government is continuing the same unfair and ineffective course.

In first place are the beneficiaries, who enjoy the 26th lowest corporate taxation as a percentage of total tax revenue among the 27 EU countries, the second lowest dividend tax rate in the EU and preferential taxation of stock options and bonuses.

Obviously, among them are the middlemen and the executives of the multinationals who make a fortune after they manage to get huge profits by overpricing the products, which reach the shelves and of course elite bankers who receive bonuses to do banking for the privileged with guarantees and resources of the state.

In addition, the big real estate owners who enjoyed the greatest benefit from the reduction of ENFIA won. For them, the 2024 budget foresees caresses since their contribution to the achievement of the surplus will be zero as the revenues from the taxation of legal entities are expected to be slightly reduced compared to those of 2023, despite the great growth for which the Government while property taxes continue to decline.

On the other side are Greek consumers who are already burdened with the 6th highest indirect tax burden as a percentage of total tax revenue among the 27 EU countries, at a time when inflation (harmonised price index) in Greece is on the rise, even as the European one is decelerating , and at a time when food inflation continues to be consistently above 10% and the 2nd highest in Europe. For them the budget in 2024 foresees more paddle with 1.5 billion euros more taxes from VAT and excise duty, in addition to the 1.7 billion euros of VAT they pay in 2023 compared to 2022 which in turn these taxes brought in 5.5 billion euros.

In practice, the Greek employees of the private and public sectors and especially the most vulnerable, through the supermarket cart and the fuel of their car, prepay the fiscal interventions advertised by the Government. The unfair “accuracy tax” imposed additionally on top of greed inflation cancels out the indulgently misleading analyzes in the budget report on the redistributive effect of these interventions.

And while a serious plan is needed to deal with tax evasion, the government, which until a few months ago through the mouth of the Prime Minister himself promised no tax increase and at the same time the abolition of the pretense fee and the reduction of presumptions without asterisks, presented a bill to impose the horizontal head tax for all self-employed people, which is a boon to the big tax evaders.

The high current account deficit in 2023 despite being improved over 2022, and the huge gap in gross fixed capital formation relative to that of the Eurozone indicate that the country’s serious competitiveness deficits persist .

The introductory report of the Budget recalls that despite the unprecedented European resources managed by New Democracy in recent years, which from 2020 onwards are well over 8 billion euros per year, i.e. almost twice the corresponding resources that entered the country before 2020, their added value for Greek citizens appears to be marginally negligible.

On the contrary, as the register of the major final beneficiaries of the Recovery and Resilience fund shows, the Government has been particularly generous to large entrepreneurs without this distribution of resources appearing to serve a specific development model.

Consistent with its inconsistency, the financial staff of the Government of New Democracy has in the past shown an inability to make serious fiscal and macroeconomic forecasts as shown by the mismatch of forecasts and budget executions from 2019, which we estimate will be repeated in 2024 as well, as beyond others have also pointed out (e.g. by the Fiscal Council) the risks from wider geopolitical and economic developments in the international and European environment

Significantly, the achievement of the primary surplus target is due to the deduction from the general government deficit of the increased interest of 1.3 billion. As in the past, the account of the unreliability and inefficiency of the New Democracy ends up with the small and medium-sized and the less privileged.