FinMin aid reveals: We were ready for a second currency in 2015

Glen Kim, the Korean consultant of the then Finance Minister (who remains advisor to Euclid Tsakalotos today), confirmed the scheme and revealed details: It would be "like newspaper vouchers," it would "look like aeuro but it would not be a euro " It would initially cover 10% of civil servants' salaries and would initially be used to repay debts to the tax office.

According to Kathimerini, Kim said yesterday Tuesday at a party of the Five Star Pepe party in Italy that the implementation of the plan would start with civil servants by issuing coupons for 10% of their wages, which would be used exclusively for the payment of taxes.

The system, if successful, would be extended to other payments in other areas as well. According to Kim, the plan had been discussed with bankers and could be implemented if there was time.

As the Korean pundit claimed, they asked him to find the way in which such a "fiscal currency" would be implemented in Greece.

"We thought that this fiscal currency should look, smell and have the same texture as the euro without being a euro," said Kim. Describing it, according to "Kathimerini", as a "food voucher", often given as part of newspaper offerings and which is used to buy food from the supermarket at a discount.

And this "budgeted" currency would be in the form of a voucher, but would only be used to pay for tax payments, while its back value would indicate its representative value, duration, and for what purpose it was created.

One question was whether it was legally feasible to create a currency, since under the 1927 legal framework, the state is forbidden to issue money for the repayment of debts.

This problem was overcome, says Kathimerini, by the Kim team, who decided that this special currency would be for a very specific time.

The key elements of the system that was planned were that it would initially only be for the 500,000 civil servants that the government's access to their salary was easy and would account for 10% of their salary.

10% was decided, as Kim said, "so as not to flood the system with these coupons." With this 10%, civil servants had to pay the tax office and so the revenue would increase as the state coffers were emptied.

Kim said that in order to incentivize the use of vouchers, if they were not used until their expiration date, they would be reissued at a lower value for the next tax year.

This program would be a pilot project rather than permanent, Kim said, considering that this would enable them to withdraw it if it did not work.