Final Word from Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Tax cheating is a recognized problem in Czech retail, yet we challenge readers to name a single case, without using Google, of a restaurant, bar or other retail operation that was dragged through the media or courts for not paying taxes. The CR has an army of tax, customs and retail inspectors who could be used to clamp down on such tax evasion, yet the response was to impose EET on everyone. When a political decision was made a few years ago to attack the mini-godfathers so that the Five Families could have freer access to public money, a major police and media campaign was launched to shame and blame these "political entrepreneurs." Ivo Rittig, Roman Janoušek and others had been left to loot the treasury for years but were suddenly criminalized, corralled and jailed. For EET, the public enemy is the small retailer. The tactics have changed, but the objective is the same: To wipe out the little guys so that the big guys can steal even more. [Czech Republic kmotr]
Glossary of difficult words
EET - on-line sales reporting;
to clamp down - to suppress or prevent something in an oppressive or harsh manner;
to loot - to steal goods from (a place), typically during a war or riot;
to corral - to gather together and confine (a group of people or things).