In ancient Rome, the Patricians were, as is well known, the privileged class and held all offices. On the other hand, the Plebeians were the common people without aristocratic origin and were the great majority. It took struggles lasting centuries for them to acquire political rights.
In the present day, the division of the population into Patricians and Plebeians according to the rules of Ancient Rome does not apply in democratic countries.
However, in Greece, we continue to witness a phenomenon that has its roots in the founding of the modern Greek (clientelist) state. Given that the resources that the government of the day can distribute are limited, the numerous organized professional groups receive better treatment because they have more votes.
It is reasonable for him to announce measures, even if piecemeal, in favor of families and children given that perhaps Greece’s biggest problem is the demographic issue. The aging of the population undermines the pay-as-you-go pension system and the public finances of the already overindebted Greece. So something is better than nothing.
However, other measures are blatantly vote-seeking. The column had argued in the past that the state should abolish income tax for the roughly 500 thousand farmers. The reason was simple. The amount it collected in total did not exceed 50-60 million euros. What is the point of saying that you tax a professional group when you collect crumbs. Of course, politically it would be exposed to other groups.
The government chose something in between and quite clever. Zero tax for incomes up to 20 thousand euros per year, which correspond to 56% of total revenues, as it clarified. In this way, those professional farmers who declare more will also pay lower tax. Obviously, the fact that a significant part of the agricultural sector is supported by the shaky legs of EU and national subsidies and “black” money does not bother anyone.
Even the increase in the taxation of the remuneration of company board members from profits, which rises to 15% from 5% for amounts above 60 thousand euros, sounds strange when someone with an income of 20,000-30,000 euros from salaried work may pay more in tax.
What is the urban salaried worker to say, who pays much more for housing, food, and income tax when he hears about all these tax-free amounts?
All this happens because there are no common taxation rules for everyone with minimal, targeted exceptions, e.g. for the demographic issue. Income from every source should normally be included in the tax scale, which should be indexed and “lightened”, according to common sense.
However, this cannot happen in a clientelist state that many criticize but no one wants to change when they take power because of the votes. So we end up with patricians and plebeians because of direct taxation.