Start collecting card receipts
The government’s long-anticipated measure of requiring taxpayers to use card transactions in order to qualify for a personal allowance will come into force on July 1, Kathimerini understands.
All changes will be included in a draft law that will be tabled in Parliament in the next few days, with the addition of clauses about enterprises: Transactions between companies will be conducted online for amounts above 50 euros (according to the latest proposal), while consumers will have to pay with debit or credit cards for amounts topping 500 euros, down from 1,500 euros today.
In the first year of the measure’s application the tax authorities will also accept receipts from cash payments toward the tax-free threshold, but only receipts from payments using cards or other online means will be accepted from 2017.
The government’s plan provides for salary workers, pensioners and farmers to continue collecting and saving receipts to enjoy the benefit of the tax discount from the tax-free threshold, but from July 1 it will only be electronic transactions whose receipts will count. Receipts from cash transactions in the first half of 2016 will also be accepted.
Depending on the level of each taxpayer’s income, tax authorities will demand a certain amount in receipts from plastic money transactions. Therefore for those earning up to the four categories of tax-free thresholds applying today – 8,638 euros per year for taxpayers without children, 8,863 euros for taxpayers with one child, 9,090 euros for taxpayers with two children, and 9,545 euros for taxpayers with three children or more – in order to be exempt from income tax payments, taxpayers must produce receipts amounting to 10 percent of their income – i.e. no more than 954.50 euros per year. However, for annual incomes of 15,000 euros, for example, the rate rises to 15 percent, i.e. 2,250 euros in receipts, with the rate of receipts required climbing according to income.
Still, given that no law has been passed forcing taxpayers to collect any receipts this year, the tax authorities may require fewer receipts for 2016 incomes.
