Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informational reading.

Subject: Tax exemption Result: Racism in the midst of the crisis

On a hollow autumn day in 2011 I arranged to meet my clients at the entrance of a D.O.Y. I deliberately do not mention the area; in any event they are all the same. They impose levies as in the years of Ottoman rule! The question is who pays them. Today they no longer use a whip; they simply cut off the electricity. When I practiced the profession of accountant, the auditors with whom I worked from time to time were basically paraplegic. They suffered from an unusual, rare illness and constantly had their arms stretched out with their palms turned upward. In a strange way, when you gave them money they became completely normal. They loosened up and began to walk, talk and write! Simple things! I repeat that I am conveying my personal experience and it is obvious that it does not concern all tax officials.

I have retained the words of one auditor. The then minister of finance, Miltiadis Evert, in a meeting with the noble corps of auditors, and in response to their complaints that they were being accused of “taking bribes”, answered them: “Has anyone bothered you?” We are talking about the ideal welfare state! The same auditor, on another occasion, told me that he did not know what to do with the money he had “made” with his honest sweat! He described to me that he had deposits abroad, properties in other people’s names, even gold bars in a chest! When you saw him he was, at best, a slob. He did not want to attract attention. It is well known that tax officials have made great fortunes. The state knows this very well, and their colleagues know it excellently. The people are not unaware of it. Both the state and their colleagues are implicated in concealment of crime. These are by way of introduction to the K.F.S., otherwise to the collection of public revenue by perjured and corrupt public “servants”. The same, perhaps even more, would be said by an engineer about the predators of urban planning. There, admittedly, things are a sight to behold. They park their expensive jeeps in front of their offices and preen like gaudy hatchets, the wretches. Complete lawlessness. For more information, ask Mr. Leandros Rakintzis! For even more, consult the reports of the ruthless troika. The same and worse things happen in the field of justice (para-judicial rings), of education and of the gold-embroidered Church (the former Metropolitan of Attica and related matters). We met very early in the morning, at 08:30, so that we could finish quickly. My clients are ethnic Greeks from Albania and wanted to obtain an exemption from real-estate transfer tax due to the purchase of a first home. Their exemption was certain, indisputable and expressly provided by law. They are a very likeable couple with two worthy children. People of labor and daily wages who found nothing ready-made. They wake in the deep dawn with worry in their breast and return home late in the afternoon with fatigue spread over their body like sunscreen. Their only concern is to see their children settled, children who truly deserve it. We went up to the third floor of the insatiable D.O.Y. and believed that we would be finished immediately. Fifteen days earlier we had gone again to the same D.O.Y. and had been officially assured that we were entitled to the exemption, but they wanted one of the documents we were submitting to be necessarily original. With that document in our file, we took it for granted that our visit would be of a formal, procedural nature. Unfortunately, however, we were badly caught out. As soon as we entered the anteroom, we faced an unusual spectacle. Many people had been waiting in line since 08:30 in the morning. To our great surprise we learned that many of them were from yesterday. Obviously they had not slept in the D.O.Y.! Good Lord! The taxpayers had been scattered through an anteroom and gave the impression that they were silently mourning their fate. It was a third-world image. There was not enough lighting, the sofas had sunk in and the torn chairs merely completed the picture. In front was the door that led to a large hall, something like an outpatient clinic!.. There various desks had been placed, forming a rectangle. On the desks, papers and folders were thrown about in disorder. The deserted large office gave you the impression that sirens had just sounded! On the right, the auditors’ office was shut tight. Let us compare it to a CT scanner. To enter there you needed a referral. It is known that these examinations (audits) cost money and the auditors are rumored to be highly paid employees. I mean that they receive many allowances, not only from the state! Most of the desks were empty (furniture). Only two were occupied by two unlucky employees, who had not managed to slip away themselves with some convenient excuse. A young employee was handling inheritances and a lady was handling transfers. The young man in inheritances seemed to know his job. No one was waiting in line. He appeared active and courteous. The lady who had undertaken transfers presented an image unusual to the point of strange, I would say psychedelic. She wore printed floral trousers that recalled the flower children. She combined those trousers with a bright yellow shirt that suggested butterflies and meadows with the musical background “May is coming to us...”. She did not fly like the butterfly, but when she walked she competed with it worthily. To me, at least, when she walked she gave the impression that the tune “...a dime for the violet ...tsingoleleta .. tsingoleleta ..” was playing! When, as I mentioned above, we realized that the unfortunate taxpayers had been waiting in line since the previous day, a cold sweat broke out on us and we urgently looked for ether! At some point we recovered from the shock and thought of leaving. In the end we did not leave. As it turned out afterward, we regretted staying. With the arrival of new taxpayers, the line grew. In the end the anteroom had filled with people waiting almost without protest. They looked at one another strangely, suspiciously, even competitively. Each person’s absolute, sole concern was not to lose his place in line. If that happened, he would lose the opportunity to deposit his mite to the state and then his patriotism would be ruined. He would have no face to show in society... Fear guards the deserted places, otherwise farewell, little springs. It did not take us long to understand that the delay was due to the mentality and the way the springlike lady worked. Slowly, among the patients received by the tax office (see also I.K.A. outpatient clinics), a dialogue of waiting and disappointment developed. Everyone commented unfavorably on the erratic and unacceptable behavior of the otherwise unruly employee, but no one said or did anything. Fear in the face of freedom was everywhere! The central thought was the excuse: “And if I lose my place?” The employee herself gave the impression that she felt satisfaction from tormenting people. I have retained the comments of some of those waiting. They said: “The colorful lady saw the papers yesterday and they need only one signature.” That is, they claimed they could have finished in two minutes. Not a chance! Reality proved them wrong. The zealous employee began the audit from the beginning, with the result that for a simple signature she recklessly and needlessly spent more than half a man-hour. We should have been grateful she was not asking for complete blood and urine tests! At the subdued complaints of the trapped citizens, the eccentric employee became aggressive to the point of hysteria: “Will you let me do my job?”, she shrieked from time to time, off script! The hours passed slowly and torturously. The situation grew worse and my productive day slipped away between the high-flying lady and the disorderly line of dehydrated (indignant) citizens. Still, I had plenty of time to admire the classic, genuine rayahs, who waited for their fate without protest. Four hundred years did not go to waste. No one dared seek the hierarchically responsible person to pull the ear of the proud, flamboyant lady. Why get mixed up now, and besides, she might have some “connection”. After two hours of unbearable waiting, I went up to Mr. Director, who, without exaggeration, seemed to be sailing in seas of happiness. Seated in his comfortable armchair in front of his large desk, he was chatting casually with another equally lounging type who did not seem to be in a hurry. He probably had nowhere to go. He had shut the sheep in the pen! Both gave the impression that they were talking about this and that. I do not exclude the possibility that they were talking about the seniority list or about the meritorious-service allowance that had been cut. When I hear some idle public servants claiming such allowances, the song of Kazantzidis automatically comes to mind: “In the factories of Germany and in Belgium’s galleries...”. There you would see allowances! Nor do I exclude the possibility that Mr. Tax Chief had taken issue with the troika, which judged the heads of the D.O.Y.s unsuitable in their greatest percentage! For all these years I could not understand what work they did. Those sharp troikans saw through them immediately. The most important thing is that by an extremely urgent circular they distributed free nail clippers to them! I am sorry, but I will agree with the troika, even though I do not want to. Indeed, in their majority the gentlemen directors of the D.O.Y.s are solemn-looking, mildly speaking clueless and above all counterproductive. The technocratic European tormentors of ours know something! If the gentlemen directors, and every settled public servant, dare enter the arena of the free market, they are lost. They entered the public sector by their own choice. They slept in its arms, but now they must wake up. This time Klafthmonos Square will probably not be able to contain them. I complained politely to Mr. Director about the unacceptable situation that had been created in that department because of his subordinate, whom, if nothing else, he himself had selected. Mr. Director languidly offered me various meaningless formal excuses, but in no instance did he consider putting things in order and relieving the unfortunate taxpayers of a great, unexpected and unjustified ordeal. He did not do the obvious. He did not consider that, since he had no other employee available (as the available one was burning “oil”), he ought to help personally. Disappointed by Mr. Director’s stance, I returned to the romantic (!) waiting area, took out my worry beads and counted the hours with particular irritation, like the rest of the tax detainees. After about an hour I went again to Mr. Director, panting from fatigue, but he was absent. Duty had called him elsewhere: freddo cappuccino, freddo espresso or double Turkish coffee “with a little” because of sugar. I have retained in my mind that the competent employee at intervals interrupted the provision of service packaged as hardship and disappeared. At other times she answered the telephone with boastfulness, completely indifferent to the line that had formed and that, because of her, reached into the next day! I do not remember whether there was a sign permitting camp beds! As time passed, those of us waiting there got to know one another and almost exchanged telephone numbers! No evil without some good... At some point, at a quarter past two in the afternoon, after the passage of six whole wasted hours times three (three people were waiting), our turn finally came! Before I had even properly sat in the chair in front of the desk of the employee, otherwise likeable in her naivete, she revealed her negative and rejecting disposition with the air of forty cardinals. Specifically, I told her that fifteen days earlier we had visited the competent department and a very likeable, experienced employee had told us that we were entitled to the exemption, provided we submitted the Family Status Certificate in original form. She answered curtly that she was not interested in what her colleague had told us. However, she urged us, if we wished, to wait for him to return from his leave! Her proposal was inconceivable. Her hostile stance was clear and unmistakable! As soon as the competent employee took in her hands the certificate of family status, officially translated, she attacked my clients by telling them that the certificate wrote that they were Albanian nationals! As if it could have written anything else! Then my clients showed her and handed her the identity cards that identified them as ethnic Greeks. That is, public documents with increased evidentiary force regarding the fact they certified. Follow the dialogue: “These identity cards do not interest me, they tell me nothing”, the disrespectful and ill-mannered employee said straight to my clients’ faces. The husband became furious at the insult he suffered and told her that he was a Greek ethnic Greek and was entitled to the exemption, whether she wanted it or not, because that is what the Law says. I tried to calm my client and in a calm manner explained to the competent employee that she did not have the discretionary power to dispute the exemption. In vain, however. You may pound as much as you like on a deaf person’s door. She continued in a forceful tone to repeat that “the identity cards told her nothing” and that my clients “were Albanian nationals”. And for that reason they would not receive the exemption. At our justified insistence, the competent employee, without any hesitation but with a background of intense racism, shouted at my clients: “Go buy houses in Albania.” And the bitter truth for my clients was confirmed. In Albania they call them Greeks and in Greece Albanians! I was forced to intervene forcefully in order to avoid a clash. I moved my clients away and asked her to retract, but she refused. When I asked her whether she intended to give me in writing what she was asserting about non-exemption, she answered affirmatively and provocatively. I immediately drafted an application, had it marked and submitted it to the competent office. I note that those present heard the dialogue and the racist outburst of the competent employee. I stated to her bluntly that what she had done would not remain as it was. It would take on the dimensions necessary. In a desperate attempt I again visited the uninvolved Mr. Director, with the firm conviction that he would do nothing. I analyzed for him the issue that had arisen. I denounced the unacceptable conduct of his subordinate. He was indifferent once again and, with a guild-like mentality, referred us to the Greek calends. In other words, he told me that “...we will answer you”. When I dared ask him when, he stressed to me in an aggressive tone that “I am not your employee”. Calmly I answered that he had no hope of becoming my employee and thought that it would be good for him to remain on his seniority list and cense it morning, noon and night. The morning of the next day I received a telephone call from the notary who would draw up the contract, who conveyed to me that he had been called by telephone from the above D.O.Y. and told that I should pass by there so they could give me the exemption I was requesting! This is not usual. They had probably understood what they had done and tried to make amends. Because of a strike by the mass transit services I did not go the same day, nor the next because I had other work. Eventually, I went on Friday, when the D.O.Y.s do not offer such services to the public. The image I encountered was completely different. The lady who had refused, spectacularly and in breach of duty, to give us the exemption was courteous to the point of flattery, almost begging me to give her the documents so that she could accept our declaration. As expected, I treated her with a cold, rejecting manner. I deliberately entered her office playing with worry beads, in a “they came and went” style. It was the antidote to the belly dance that the restless, though dangerous, lady had made me dance. After she received the relevant declaration in record time, she thanked me. As soon as her work was finished, I gave her a report I had drafted, concerning her personally as well as her Director. The report was addressed to the Ministry of Finance and to the Ombudsman. With particular satisfaction I saw that specific lady feel uncomfortable because of the report. However, awkwardly, she referred me to Mr. Director, the incorruptible one, so that he could mark it. When I went up to Mr. Director’s office, I briefly described the contents of my report and discreetly told him that I had made the report so that we would remember the previous day. There are some days that withstand time. I do not know the result, nor am I in a position to prejudge it. What matters is that I protest, insist, hope and wait. In conclusion, the ideal pair I described as vividly as I could are the people of the D.O.Y. next door, of the public service next door. It is the pair that infects with neoplasia the healthy cells of the tissue of public administration as well. It is the self-grown pair that flourishes in all public services. It is the pair that is not easily uprooted; it is particularly resistant to chemotherapy and radiation. To uproot it requires persistence and patience. Do they exist? (See republication of the article at the electronic address: http://panosz.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/doy/)