Greece’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, in a preliminary finding, has ruled unconstitutional a proposal by the country’s financial crimes squad, SDOE, to freeze bank accounts, stock holdings and properties of suspects linked to large scale cases of tax evasion, smuggling and other financially-related crimes.
The decision is a setback in Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ attempt to curb runaway tax evasion that is costing the country more than $70 billion during a crushing economic crisis that has seen the government turn to pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions in a frantic bid to cut its debt.
The court deemed that the regulations violated the principles of the European Convention of Human Rights, although Greece routinely ignores EU findings that aren’t in its favor. A final decision is to be issued by the court’s plenary session. Last week, SDOE officials were granted direct online access to Greek bank accounts as part of efforts to find tax cheats.
Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras is also looking to amend the law that now only allows suspended sentences for tax evaders so that they can face mandatory sentences, but few are ever prosecuted anyway as tax evasion is mounting with people looking to escape austerity measures, and many squirreling their money away in secret foreign bank accounts.
In a related issue, the four relatives of former Finance Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou whose names were allegedly removed from a list of 2,062 Greeks with $1.95 billion in deposits in the Geneva, Switzerland branch of HSBC do not appear to have broken any laws, two SDOE inspectors told a parliamentary inquiry. The committee is probing Papaconstantinou as part of an attempt to find out who removed the names of his relatives.
Panayiotis Mantouvalos and Haralambos Sgouros told the committee that preliminary checks indicated that Papaconstantinou’s relatives – two cousins and their husbands – are able to account for the money they had deposited There was no indication that the four had flouted any tax regulations, the inspectors told MPs.
However, they also underlined that SDOE continues to be understaffed and is having trouble following up the list. The agency has 50 inspectors but it estimates that it needs 400 to be in a position to provide a full report on the Greek HSBC depositors. They are still looking into an account in the name of Maria Panteli which has $550 million and is the largest on the list.
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