By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

A few hours are at their disposal for the businesses they received refundable deposit but either they had not submitted the necessary supporting documents or they were incomplete.

If they do not submit the necessary papers or those they submit do not prove that the clause of maintaining the number of employees has been respected, then they will be asked to return all the capital they received ONCE and in fact, “earned” with interest that runs retroactively from the 1 December. And this because according to his decision Ministry of Financethe extensions granted for the amounts certified until November 2 cease to apply.

It is recalled that due to the large number of companies that were left out of the water, the Ministry of Finance was forced to change the way of calculating the job preservation clause.

On the contrary, those companies that had already submitted the necessary supporting documents by September 23 and it turns out that they did not make layoffs will pay only 15% of the amount in 96 installments as a cut of up to 75% is foreseen. The deadline for paying the first installment is June 30. These companies also retain the possibility of a one-time payment of the refund amount with a 15% discount.

Under the same conditions, they will be asked to return the money – except for the one-off discount – and those freelancers and businesses – out of the 17,000 who filed an objection – will be vindicated. The initial audit by the Ministry of Finance showed that they did not meet the necessary conditions and they were asked to return the entire amount. Objections to the findings of the auditing authorities followed and the interested parties have been waiting for months. And they will wait even longer since – according to the latest decision of the Ministry of Finance – the competent committee that has been set up will respond by October 31.

The Ministry of Finance has clarified that the refund amounts received by the companies 2022 are pre-filled in code 781-782 (Monetary sums derived from disposal of assets, loans, donations) when completing their tax return. Accordingly, the amount they are asked to return must be filled in by the companies themselves in codes 727-728 as the refund is treated as a government loan for tax purposes.