> a) try to get to an agreement that can get Greece back into shape, even if it means postpone debt payments, restructuring, haircut, etc where it is beneficial for all parties
And that is what has been tried. Debt payment has been postponed a lot, there' been plenty of debt restructuring. Still, that is what Syriza now does not want to do.
Greeks are still paying less taxes (in proportion to their national income) than anyone else in the eurozone (except Lithuania, who adopted euro one month ago).
I honestly don't know about Greece, but I can tell you that graph is very wrong in so many levels. For example, Sweden is at 44.5%, but they count all money paid as taxes (according to a Deloitte report I was given when I had a job offer there, I can try to dig it up if needed) including what will go to social security/retirement/etc. In Portugal, you pay income tax (let's say around 20% give or take), but then, you as an employee pay 11.5% to social security and your employer pays 22.5%. So roughly, 34.5% to social security alone, but this doesn't go to the 'tax revenue' bracket. So, if we take in account corporation tax at 23% (lower in 2015), VAT at 23% for most stuff (including electricity!!), and income tax (variable between 14 and almost 50%), + social security, that 33.1% is way off. In 2012, a person in Portugal would have to work until August to have his 'taxes paid'. This means, more than 60% of his work output is taxes one way or the other.
No, I did not look at that picture; data is much more easy to handle in text format. I looked two days ago at Wikipedia [0], but primary source should actually be Eurostat [1].
And you are of course right in that different countries have different systems, and numbers are not always directly comparable. A small difference is not necessarily significant, or there may be quite some difference in practice even if numbers are the same.
But if we look at those Eurostat numbers, what the paper says is Total revenue from taxes and compulsory social contributions - % of GDP so also for Portugal and Greece, those mandatory social security contributions of employer and employee are included as tax revenues in this comparison, like they are for Sweden.
What is significant is that the employment rate of people varies a lot in different countries; it is 73-74 % in Sweden, Netherlands and Germany, while it is below 50 % in Croatia and Greece.
It should also be noted that tax revenue to GDP is just a ratio, a number. It does not mean that taxes are a certain proportion of GDP, because a sum of all tax revenues is not a component of GDP.
Interestingly, in Portugal this ratio actually dropped from 33.2 % to 32.4 % between 2011-2012. Most countries were tightening taxes at that time. But since this number is ratio to GDP, if GDP increases and tax revenue stays the same, the ratio drops.
Hi! This is late but I seem to have missed your reply but didn't want not to reply to it :)
In any case, you are probably right and it includes all taxes, including Social Security and the likes. I just find it odd, that at least on normal people's taxes (income tax + social security + VAT) the numbers don't add up. Maybe GDP in Portugal is generated a lot by non individuals (corporate, where tax is around a fixed 23%) and the income gap is quite large giving out those percentages?
I know I'm on the top percentile tax wise, but my tax percentage, if we include VAT is close to 60% (I bill through my own company, so I'm responsible for all tax). When I was working for a third party circa 2010, it was around 45% or so. Not doubting your figures at all, they may even bring to light the actual problem which is, normal folks actually pay a lot of the countries taxes (so, not exactly lazy, which was my main point a few posts ago) but a lot of the elite is syphoning the money somehow. There is a reason our former prime minister is in jail (preventive, sorta like pre-bail) for corruption charges, like most of our politicians, they seem to be able to get very rich in short amount of time while having very small tax declarations.
And that is what has been tried. Debt payment has been postponed a lot, there' been plenty of debt restructuring. Still, that is what Syriza now does not want to do.
Greeks are still paying less taxes (in proportion to their national income) than anyone else in the eurozone (except Lithuania, who adopted euro one month ago).