Cross-checking reveals extensive evasion
The interconnection of cash registers with card terminals (POS) may have been delayed and not be expected until the first months of 2024, but this does not mean that the tax administration is sitting idly by. Extensive cross-checking is under way, as well as spot checks at businesses to verify that the data generated by the POS are identical to the receipts issued by the cash registers.
Inspections in tourism destinations have already brought the first results: From the audits carried out, it was found that several enterprises collect VAT but do not pay it to the state or declare their income.
Therefore cross-checks between POS payments and cash registers helped auditors identify and shut down four tax-dodging food service businesses in Athens, one on Poros and a clothing store in Mykonos.
They were found to have accepted payments via POS, for which they did not issue a receipt, while in other cases they did not transmit the transactions to the tax authorities (AADE). Customers who paid by card either did not get a receipt or received one but the store did not declare it to the tax authorities.
In central Athens, namely Agias Irinis Square in Petralona, four stores were found to have not forwarded receipts, of a total value of 682,000 euros. In addition to a 48-hour shuttering, total fines of €43,000 were imposed.
A similar violation was also found in a restaurant on Poros, which had not issued nor, consequently, forwarded receipts for €1,250.
On Mykonos, a well-known clothing store was sealed because it was found that it had not forwarded 424 receipts, of a total value of €61,000.
According to AADE data, 8.5 billion receipts, with a total value of over €250 billion, have been received from cash registers through data transmission. From this interface, the tax administration sees in real time whether they have forwarded the receipts. Regardless of whether a business submits VAT returns, it has the obligation for interconnection.
As AADE Director Giorgos Pitsilis has stated, “a cross-check has started from the data of the POS, the details of the transactions, with what we see from the transmission of the cash registers. We have already started extensive comparisons as well as spot checks.”
