Greece finds the money to pay domestic obligations
The Greek deputy finance minister for expenditures said payouts will go out as scheduled in an FT report.
"Whatever needs to be paid will be paid on time - that means wages, pensions and the subsidy to IKA (Greece's biggest health and social security fund)," Dimitris Mardas told the Financial Times.
However, Mardas refused to give any assurances about a separate €450m payment due to the IMF on April 9.
Athens will present reforms in the aim of receiving Troika aid in the days ahead. In the meantime, Mardas said tax collection is improving.
"People started paying the property tax again in February and we've seen very good inflows in March," he said.
Greek tax collection has long worked on a more-or-less voluntary system and bribing of tax collectors is rampant. Micheal Lewis wrote a great story about it in 2010, with tidbits like this:
The scale of Greek tax cheating was at least as incredible as its scope: an estimated two-thirds of Greek doctors reported incomes under 12,000 euros a year-which meant, because incomes below that amount weren't taxable, that even plastic surgeons making millions a year paid no tax at all. The problem wasn't the law-there was a law on the books that made it a jailable offense to cheat the government out of more than 150,000 euros-but its enforcement. "If the law was enforced," the tax collector said, "every doctor in Greece would be in jail." I laughed, and he gave me a stare. "I am completely serious."
