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the issuance of a Citizen Smart Card that can be used as an ID card, in the Health System, as well as for gaining access to the food stamp program etc.
I just picked this up on re-reading. This amounts to the electronic infrastructure that could support the roll-out of an under-the-radar alternative currency. Food stamps, tax credits, income support... It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
Reform VAT policy, administration and enforcement. Robust efforts will be made to improve collection and fight evasion making full use of electronic means and other technological innovations.
[Public finance] Payment procedures will be modernised and accelerated while providing a higher degree of financial and budgetary flexibility and accountability for independent and/or regulatory entities. * Devise and implement a strategy on the clearance of arrears, tax refunds and pension claims.
Establish a transparent, electronic, real time institutional framework for public tenders/procurement - re-establishing DIAVGEIA (a side-lined online public registry of activities relating to public procurement)
Improve swiftly, in agreement with the institutions, the legislation for repayments of tax and social security arrears
Step up enforcement methods and procedures, including the legal framework for collecting unpaid taxes and effectively implement collection tools
issuance of a Citizen Smart Card that can be used as an ID card, in the Health System, as well as for gaining access to the food stamp program etc
Can a Bitcoin-style virtual currency solve the Greek financial crisis? | Comment is free | The Guardian
If things go badly for Greece, finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said he would consider creating a parallel digital currency, using Bitcoin's digital security and transparency, but doing the exact opposite of what the money fundamentalists intend.
It's in the program...
You hand out smart cards to the entire population. They are initially intended for accessing the health system, and for food stamps. Every citizen has an account created by the government. Retailers and health providers need terminals, obviously.
Then, some time later, ta-daa, you roll out Citizen Smart Card 2.0. It's the card you already have, but now you have an "Air Miles" account, with an initial free allocation on it. You can use your Air Miles to pay your tax. Retailers who accept food stamps will accept them for payment too, using them for their own tax liabilities, and exchanging them with other companies (all companies can have an Air Miles account too). Government income support would also be paid through the system, perhaps pensions...
Pretty quickly you have critical mass for a purely electronic currency -- I don't see any immediate need for physical scrip. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
BITCOIN: A flawed currency blueprint with a potentially useful application for the Eurozone | Yanis Varoufakis
BITCOIN: A flawed currency blueprint with a potentially useful application for the Eurozone
YV's FT coins are pretty different from the proposals for tax anticipation notes we had so far. First their face value is greater than 1 when held for a certain time and used to extinguish tax liabilities. Secondly they can be exchanged to at will. Finally he envisioned people buying them on their own initiative.
On the face of it I don't really see the upside here. Since the Greece has only limited hard Euro funding there is some risk here of a bank run. Then there is the distributional effect of and opportunity cost for what amounts to a tax break for people with savings.
Still, it's a year old, not a complete proposal and he wasn't a minister at the time.
...opportunity cost for what amounts to a tax break for people with savings.
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