Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Greek Party(ing) Is Over?

As part of its fiscal austerity program to reduce its large budget deficit, the Greek government plans to raise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. So not only can one say that the Greek party is over figuratively speaking, there will be less partying in Greece for its citizens. At least it will be so using alcohol and tobacco bought legally in Greece. Higher alcohol taxes have a tendency to encourage moonshining, smuggling and purchases in other countries. Because of that, this tax increase might not generate as much extra revenue as the Greek government hopes.