Tax statement process starts in a month
The process for the submission of income tax statements is reverting to the pre-pandemic calendar, with the start of the submission period in the second half of March, as the tax administration has upped its pace for everything to be in place without any nasty surprises for taxpayers.
As of late next month, individuals and corporations will be able to start uploading their tax declarations regarding their 2021 incomes and paying their dues, even though the deadline for the first tranche will still be July 31. Any state entities and private company accounting offices that have not yet sent their full data on payments to the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR) have two more weeks to do so – i.e. until February 28.
The main change to the process compared to the pre-pandemic period concerns the number of installments for the payment of tax: Instead of three tranches, one every two months, the dues will be payable in up to eight monthly installments – i.e. up to the end of February 2023.
The IAPR is also doing its best to ensure that the new forms of the 2022 declarations have more sections pre-filled. Sources tell Kathimerini that it is possible that this year the E1 and E2 forms will also have pre-filled the amounts of rental revenues in 2021, as the tax authorities already have at their disposal the data from the online declarations on property leasing and the so-called “Covid” rental statements taxpayers submitted last year.
Crucially, last year’s exemptions introduced due to the pandemic will not apply anymore: They concern the obligation for at least 30% of one’s income to be spent on electronic transactions, or face a fine, and the calculation of each taxpayer’s income through the assessment of their taxable assets, known in Greek as “tekmiria.”
These exemptions were only for last year and only for those proven to have been hurt by the pandemic, and will not be repeated, a senior Finance Ministry official has told Kathimerini.
As was also the case before the pandemic, the online payments rule does not apply to taxpayers aged over 70, foreign tax residents, Greeks who live abroad but have the obligation to submit a tax statement in Greece, and those with a disability rating of at least 80%.
