Tax evasion is, of course, one of our national sports, a variation on hide-and-seek. It even has its patron, Saint Mamas. Nonetheless, the new income tax regulations and the introduction of a real estate tax (a staggering 0.5% on property valued over 10,000,000 drachmas) are causing deep concern and have sent the upper income groups scurrying for cover.
The government’s fiscal policy of socking the rich and relieving the tax burden on the poor gave me the idea of investigating the effects of these Robin Hood tactics on the upper strata of Athenian society. For this purpose I paid a visit to the Neoploutopoulos’ Residence in Ekali, the home of Bouli Neoploutopoulos, the bubble-gum king, and his wife Titi (a common diminutive of Aphrodite — nothing to do with the good lady’s anatomy).
Bouli was away but Titi received me graciously in an ornate living room on the ground floor of her beautiful villa. She was draped over a Saridis settee (copied from a Minoan mural) with a foot – long ivory cigarette holder in one hand and a toy poodle in the other.
The poodle attacked me savagely as Titi waved me to a gaily – coloured leather pouff by her side and said:
‘Sit down, little man. Don’t mind the dog.’
I kicked the dog smartly in the shins as I lowered my six-feet – two-hundred-pound-bulk on to the pouff.
The shrill squeals of pain from the poodle blessedly drowned the afflatus of escaping air from the pouff as the latter collapsed to within two inches of the floor.
‘So you want to know how the new taxes are affecting us?’ Titi asked, peering down at me over the back of the settee.
I nodded, crossing my legs yoga-fashion and pulling out my notebook.
‘Well, when they were first announced, Bouli nearly had a fit.’ Last year, as you probably know, was a bad year for bubble-gum sales and the price of raw chicle has almost doubled. The new taxes were the last straw! Bouli was on the the point of packing-up the whole operation or selling-out to Wrigley’s.’
I interrupted her to note that I was surprised to hear bubble-gum sales had dropped in 1974.1 had not observed, I remarked, any significant diminution in the masticatory rhythm of the country’s. younger population — at least not among those whose lower jaws are not hidden behind a shaggy curtain of hair.
‘Oh, they still chew,’ Titi admitted, ‘but they chew longer,’ she explained. ‘Sometimes one wad lasts them a whole week.’
‘Even when it is blown into a bubble and collapses all over their faces?’
‘Alas, even then,’ Titi said sadly, ‘their retrieval techniques are truly amazing.’
‘And what is the answer to that?’
‘Well, we must either discover a less durable raw material or cut down on our living expenses — both extremely difficult propositions.’
Aha, I thought. Now we come to the nitty-gritty!
‘What would you do if you had to cut down on your living expenses — purely hypothetically, of course?’
Of course! I couldn’t bear to think of it otherwise. Well, let me see! We have three cars, and I suppose we could sell the Mini I use for shopping. But in that case, I’d have to take the Ferrari into town and it’s very difficult to negotiate some of the corners in the Hermes Street area with a Ferrari, you know. No, I don’t think I could spare the Mini. We’ll have to think of something else.’
‘How about the servants?’
I ventured, having already spotted a maid, a gardener and a valet, and having heard the shrill screams of what sounded like a cook coming from somewhere in the back of the house.
Out of the question,’ Titi said firmly. Ί am down to a skeleton staff of five already. They wouldn’t leave anyway, even if I fired them. They’ve said so many times that they’re much too loyal. But I think what’s really happening is they’re all stealing me blind. But que faire, mon cher?’ Titi said, playfully pinching my cheek.
‘How about cutting down on food,’ I suggested.
Titi laughed. Ί don’t eat anything at all. I have to watch my figure, you know. And as for Bouli, he has the most terrible ulcers. All he can drink is milk and he takes it at the office. No, we couldn’t save on food.’
‘How about entertainment?’
Titi shook her head. ‘All we do is go to boring cocktail and dinner parties and give boring cocktail and dinner parties in return. It’s a vicious circle you simply can’t escape.’
‘Travel?’
She shook her head again.
‘We don’t do any traveling except on our yacht or when we’re invited on other people’s yachts. And if we didn’t have our yacht to invite them back on, we wouldn’t be invited in the first place and we wouldn’t be able to travel at all. So there’s nothing we can cut down on there.’
‘Isn’t there anything you could cut down on at all?’ I asked, in desperation.
Titi thought for a few minutes. Then her face brightened.
Ί could stop my subscription to The Athenian she said with a coy smile.
I heaved myself to my feet, kicked the poodle a second time as it came rushing at me, and bid my adieus to the lady. The conclusion I had come to was that nothing could dent the complacency of the idle rich except perhaps a strike in the Ferrari factory or a plague on poodles.
