Lagarde hit by furious Greek tax backlash
IMF chief Christine Lagarde was hammered by a furious backlash from Greek politicians and members of the public over the weekend after she suggested that Greeks should pay their taxes.
Greek MPs raced to condemn one of the country’s major international paymasters ahead of a second set of elections scheduled for 17 June.
According to Greek newspaper Ekathimerini, Socialist party leader Evangelos Venizelos said: “The tone of Mrs Lagarde’s comments was unacceptable. It was insulting.”
A spokesman for the right-wing New Democracy party, which has argued for lower taxes, said: “The average Greek must be wondering what she was trying to achieve with comments like this.”
And Alexis Tsipras of the radical left Syriza party blamed “big capital” for avoiding taxes, saying: “Greek workers pay their taxes, which are unbearable.”
An estimate from the European Commission last autumn put the amount of uncollected taxes in Greece at €60bn, which is just under a fifth of Athens’ total debt pile.
But more than 14,000 comments, many from angry Greeks, were posted on Lagarde’s Facebook page in response to the row, prompting her to publish a statement saying: “I am very sympathetic to the Greek people and the challenges they are facing.”
In a newspaper interview published on Friday, Lagarde had said she worries more about impoverished schoolchildren in Niger than about Greeks not getting public services.
“Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax,” she said.
She added that she thinks as much about Greek tax evaders as she does about the plight of laid-off public sector workers: “I think of them equally. And I think they should also help themselves collectively […] by all paying their tax.”
Meanwhile, Labour’s Chuka Umunna, shadow business secretary, also attacked Lagarde, saying she “is no oracle” and is unlikely to criticise George Osborne because he supported her candidacy for IMF chief.