One of the infamous "lists" of Greek citizens with large bank deposits abroad, in this case the so-called "Borjans list", has apparently failed to generate the anticipated windfall of repatriated undeclared income for Greek state coffers.
The man whose name was attached to the specific list of Greek depositors, Norbert Walter Borjan, the former finance minister of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, told Deutsche Welle this week that only very meager results were derived by the Greek state from whatever audits of the Greek citizens found in the data supplied to Athens by the latter.
Borjan had first tried to transfer a list of 10,588 Greek taxpayers or citizens with deposits at the Swiss bank USB as far back as 2012, with the then coalition government reportedly showing no interest. However, his offer was taken up by the Tsipras government in 2015, which was elected, among others, on a pledge to weed out tax evasion and recover undeclared income exported abroad by wealthy Greeks.
The total value of deposits contained in the specific list conveyed to Greek authorities reached 6.5 billion euros, whereas figures released earlier this month showed that out of 333 audits commenced, only 135 were concluded. Even more disappointing was the fact that only 16.8 million euros eventually found their way into the Greek treasury.
"Naturally, expectations from the list were greater," Borjan is quoted by DW as saying, adding:
"When you provide a data base of deposits exceeding six billion euros you should know that not all of them (depositors) on the list are law-breakers. As such, I did not expect that six billion euros would be collected. However, 16 million collected is a very small figure. And, naturally, I hoped that all of those people that tax evaded would return the money to public coffers. This is something that disappointed me. This doesn't apply just to Greece, but also for us (North Rhine-Westphalia)."
In his capacity as North Rhine-Westphalia's finance minister, Borjan was instrumental in purchasing data showing depositors in Swiss banks, providing information not just to Greek authorities but also to other European countries, such as Spain.
