Please, let us pay our taxes

37° 30′ 16.8372” N 23° 27′ 40.0716” E

28th september 2020

“My job is not to help you. My job is to give you a fine, if you have not paid your taxes.”

The policeman is extremely unpleasant. First, he throws us out of an office with a sign saying Port Police on the door. Obviously, it is not meant for ordinary citizens to walk through that door. Later, he explains to us out in the hallway, that we must solve our problems ourselves. His job is to give us fines.

​All we want is to pay our taxes.

​Greece has introduced a sailing tax, called eTepai, which for our sailing boat amounts to 33 € for each month it is sailing in Greek waters.

​We actually thought, we had paid the tax from home over the internet, where we had filled out forms and transferred money from our bank to the Greek state. But after a few days, the money comes back without any explanation. Now that we’re in Greece again, we’re trying to find another way to pay our taxes.

​At first, we go to a branch of the National Bank of Greece. No. That kind of thing they will have nothing to do with. “Try in the city’s other bank, Alpha Bank, they have a machine that can handle those kinds of payments,” one of the bank’s employees tells us.

​In the city’s second bank, Alpha Bank, they know nothing about this. We can ‘t transfers our money in their bank.

​And then we end up with the port police. “Could you please tell us, where we can pay our sailing taxes?”

​Well, they could not.

​Then we go into a store that advertises that they make any kind of money transfer worldwide. Well, except ours. “There is no possibility, that you can transfer this money through us,” says the clerk.

​Now only the post office is left. We line up with a number of other citizens. And, when it’s our turn, the miracle happens: The post office can handle our money. The money is transferred. We are again law-abiding sailors, who can walk past the harbor police with a straight back, while in our quiet minds we think, that it is so odd, that in this country an authority figure can’t be an executive police authority and at the same time acting accommodating and helpful.