Targeting the VAT dodgers

The tax administration intends to perform exhaustive auditing of retail businesses, freelancers and service companies with the aim of detecting the concealment of taxable material.

Auditors of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue will look for those who do not issue receipts, evading value-added tax (VAT) payment, while at the same time declaring extremely low incomes. After the success of the Appodixi app, where more and more citizens scan receipts to verify their authenticity, inspectors are rushing to identify the shops and businesses that don’t issue receipts.

Inspection procedures have started without the need, in the first phase, for the tax official to visit the business. The electronic systems and indirect monitoring techniques used can reveal hidden income.

With the use of control techniques, taxable material is determined, besides what stems from the declarations and official books and data of the taxpayer; this is done by drawing information, data and details from various sources, such as bank deposits, expenses incurred not only by the company but also its owners etc.

Essentially, expenditure data will be sought from bills (utilities, cell telephony etc), deposits and expenditure made via credit and debit cards.

The tax auditors have already received guidelines in order to collect – through the databases available to the tax administration – the first information on the profile of the audited companies, so as to deduce the first conclusions on the declared incomes, each company’s facilities, the amount of its transactions, customers and suppliers etc.

If it is found, for example, that expenditure and deposits have exceeded the declared gross income for a year, inspectors will visit the businesses and if the data does not match what is declared in the books and in the myDATA platform businesses will be retaxed based on the findings from the indirect control techniques, while at the same time the relevant fines will be imposed.