Evidence of income criteria for everyone and cash registers everywhere were just two of the upcoming tax measures unveiled by Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou on Sunday, in an interview regarding the government's planned tax reforms that was published by the Sunday edition of the newspaper "Ethnos".

   The minister repeated earlier announcements regarding the abolition of separate tax rates for certain sources of income and said the government intended to abolish early pension privileges and unfair salaries in the public-sector. At the same time, he stressed the need for everyone to contribute according to their means and to provide protection for those that were weakest.

   "This is the direction in which the programme for cutting public sector spending is moving and this is also the direction of the tax bill," he said.

   Papaconstantinou explained that there were no plans to lower the very large tax-free allowance - currently the highest within the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - but that these high tax allowances would be linked to a system of receipts proportional to income. This would be coupled with new objective lifestyle criteria indicating minimum income levels.

   "For example, a tax payer declaring an annual income of 15,000 euros will be asked to explain how it is possible for him or her to maintain a villa, holiday home and yacht," the minister explained.

   He confirmed the abolition of a uniform property tax, to be replaced by a scaled property tax that would require those with major real estate holdings to pay the largest amounts, and emphasised the government's determination to use every electronic means available to monitor and cross-check the tax statements submitted by tax payers.

   On the planned pension reforms, the minister said that this was a major issue that addressed current inequities in the system:

   "We are not the only ones who see that when a private-sector employee is required to retire at 65, after a perhaps difficult and harsh working life, and receives the pension he is entitled to from IKA he might feel offended when he sees special groups enjoying pensions several times larger at much younger ages," Papaconstantinou pointed out.

   During the interview, the finance minister also referred to Greece's massive debt and deficit, pointing out that the country will have to borrow 54 billion euros from markets during the current year. He underlined that Greece had not submitted to the 'dictates of the EU' but was taking steps to comply with a set of rules that it had signed for when it joined the eurozone and was currently violating.

   At the same time, the government had to act in order to protect the country's economy at a time when borrowing conditions were extremely difficult, he added. Referring to the current model for growth in Greece, Papaconstantinou said that this was based chiefly on consumption fuelled by borrowing. He noted that the 2010 budget had allocated funds that boosted the income of groups with a high tendency for consumption but also allocated 10.3 billion euros for actions promoting development, noting that the funds freed from wasteful spending could be used to boost growth.