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Tax evasion is endemic in Greece and its international lenders, the EU and the IMF, have insisted Athens improve tax collection if they are to continue bankrolling the debt-laden country

The list of 4,000 top tax dodgers released recently includes a host of convicted tax frauds and failed businessmen, a prominent singer, the husband of a former government minister as well as a retired basketball star who was recently released from a two-year jail term for illegally owning an arms cache.

Athens has been threatening to publish the list for months and had to change privacy laws to follow through on the threat. It had been kept in a safe in parliament, where lawmakers were allowed to read it without taking notes.

Topping the list with arrears of 952 million euros is a convicted tax fraud who is already serving a 504-year prison sentence for issuing fake receipts to companies that wanted to lower their tax bill.

Greece has about 60 billion euros ($77.52 billion) in unpaid taxes, a figure equivalent to about a quarter of its economy, according to an EU report published in November.

Just 8 billion euros of that amount can be quickly recovered, the EU said, though even that is a sum big enough to cut the country's budget deficit by half.

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Published on our website on February 1, 2012