Editorial: Sisyphus and the taxman

The data in journalistic reports is overwhelming.

One in three euros in income taxes for 2017 never reached the public coffers, due to citizens’ inability to shoulder their tax burden.

Similarly, twenty percent of VAT taxes, and 160 million euros in real estate taxes were never paid.

In total, overdue taxes currently exceed a dizzying 100 billion euros.

Aside from people, therefore, the numbers are not prospering either.

All this shows that taxpayers can endure less and less the burden of over-taxation, that they have reached their limit.

It also suggests that the bailout memorandum, for large swathes of taxpayers, will never end, since their titanic battle to free themselves of their obligations has become a Sisyphean task.

Under such circumstances, no one is entitled to be complacent, nor are triumphant pronouncements advisable.

It is inconceivable for the government to be presenting a success story, or to insist on rhetoric that is so far from reality, simply because reality is unpleasant.

This tactic is reminiscent of the way one erased annoying personages from photographs of yesteryear.

Even worse, the government is shaping an alternate reality.

It is the reality of one who not only does not recognise the Sisyphean labours of the people, but actually is perched on the rock.