Chosen man hoping to crack a nation's tax-dodging DNA Anger: Workers protest bailout impositions. For the millions of Greeks keen to see their country clamber from its financial black hole, Haris Theoharis, the taxman, is there to extend a helping hand. His grip, however, is very firm indeed, and has a habit of delving into private places where many would prefer it did not go. Appointed this year as the country's Secretary-General for Public Revenue, Theoharis has the task of filing what is probably the biggest back-tax demand in history - the whopping €40 billion ($57 billion) his fellow citizens have run up in unpaid dues over the decades. Getting them to cough up is one of the conditions Greece's international creditors have laid down for continuing their €240 billion bailout, which has another review this week. But in a country where tax-dodging has been likened to a national pastime, that makes Theoharis as much public enemy No.1 as would-be national saviour. "I get ... some people saying, 'Soldier on', and others saying, 'No, we've had enough, stop sending us tax bills'," says the softly spoken 42-year-old, who goes on Greek television talk shows to preach the cause of compliance. One broadcaster unlikely to be hosting him for much longer is the state-run ERT, abruptly closed last month as part of government efforts to cut the huge public sector. After an outcry and a walkout by a faction in the ruling coalition, it is back on air, for now at least. But it illustrates the problem Theoharis wants Greeks to face: if they wish such services to continue, taxpayers must foot the bill, not foreign creditors. On paper, Theoharis' credentials are limited for his powerful new role. He previously worked as a Ministry of Finance IT manager rather than as a tax expert. Then again, "paper" is something Greece's antiquated tax system could do with less of. One of Theoharis' main challenges is to create from its vast archives of dusty files a computer database, without which many past tax crimes may never be uncovered. Indeed, as he freely admits, most never will be. Staggeringly, more than two-thirds of the €40 billion owed has been deemed uncollectable, that is, owed by companies that are defunct or individuals who are deceased or bankrupt. Theoharis also maintains a Twitter account where he does his best to educate a wayward public in the basics of tax law, and congratulates those who occasionally tweet back to say they have completed their returns. Tax avoidance became part of the culture in Greece during Ottoman rule, when it was seen as an act of patriotic resistance. But the practice has persisted thanks to a hugely over-complex system. Penalties for non-payment were almost non-existent, and courts took up to a decade to bring prosecutions. To rectify the idea that only "little people" pay, this year tax officials have stepped up an aggressive campaign targeting big companies and wealthy individuals. They are armed with a new law under which anyone suspected of dodging more than €10,000 in taxes can be put in jail pending charges. With this tactic, the glacial speed of the Greek court system is for once an asset: given that a prosecutor can take up to 18 months to decide if there is a case to answer, many prefer to pay up. That get-tough campaign has claimed an elegantly coiffured scalp in the form of Lakis Gavalas, a fashion designer famous for extravagant parties at his villa in Mykonos. For 18 months he languished in jail for an unpaid €17 million tax bill, but on Tuesday he bought his way out by giving a large amount of his property to the government. Gavalas, who was taken to jail wearing a €2500 outfit and passed his time inside sifting through the prison's second-hand clothes for vintage items, was unavailable for comment. But his lawyer Giannis Pagoropoulos said he had been made a "scapegoat." "This was public revenge against a man who had everything," Pagoropoulos said. Such claims bring a smile to Theoharis, who sees Gavalas as a "bit of a whiner." The more assertive stance on tax collection puts officials on the frontline for public anger, and there have been incidents of collectors being threatened with guns, butchers' knives and whips. Pagoropoulos, who has 10 other wealthy clients accused of tax fraud, doubts Theoharis has what it takes. "He is too gentle, and you need a killer for this job," he said. Tax dodging is in the Greek DNA.