In a new seat in Athens, the independent authority of Greek public income closely supervises its screens. On the walls, moving in real time of data, drones and cameras flows installed in the four corners of the country: ports of islands, nightclubs, grain silos or service stations. Inspectors track tax fraud thanks to Big Data, artificial intelligence and specific controls, in what is a real digital revolution … of tax collection.
Long synonym of inefficiency, the Hellenic tax system has become “a model in Europe,” AP reports. To understand why Greece is betting today on this “futuristic” device, he must go back almost twenty years. The 2008 world financial crisis hit a country already weakened by a massive debt and a budget deficit out of control. In its peak, the debt reached almost 177% of GDP (end of 2014) and the deficit exceeded 13%.
Athens lost access to financial markets and had to accept three rescue plans of the European Union and the IMF. In return: an austerity of rare brutality, made of budget cuts, tax increases and record unemployment. After almost a decade of recession and mass events, Greece left his aid programs in 2018.
Tax inspectors 2.0
But the country still carries the deep scars of this test. And its fiscal transformation is explained by a supposed strategy: using technology to harden the network mesh. At the authority headquarters, current inspections are followed on the screen, drones flows that cover several sites and activities, as well as live statements of the fuel tanks of the ships or the movements of the fruit delivery trucks.
In the field, technology results in unprecedented control methods. The inspectors now compare the receipts of cash records, bank transactions and even the activity of mobile phones with the images filmed by drones. These crossed data quickly detect inconsistencies and target scammers. Result: hidden sales detected in a few hours, targeted raids and a high increase in tax revenues.
Unpublished drill operations
Some interventions mark the spirits. During a sober operation called “Saturday Night Fever”, agents compared the orders of a nightclub with the invoices issued, revealing massless sales without success. In a few days, the official income of the establishment … had doubled.
This type of RAID illustrates the new efficiency of a fiscal system that, perceived for a long time as Lax, now intends to be formidable. And the tax authorities believe that greater integration of artificial intelligence into fiscal management systems until 2026 could promote an acceleration of this process.
But behind budgetary success, social anger is still animated. The VAT rate, established in 24% since the crisis, has weighed a lot in homes and poverty is still high. The opposition denounces an “excess blood stained with blood”, the fruit of a fiscal effort distributed unequally. However, for the Government, rigor has opened an unprecedented space, that of a fiscal reform that, one promises, will have to make the system more fair.
Source: BFM TV
