A few days remain until the completion of the submission deadline tax returns and almost 280,000 taxpayers have not yet appeared consistent in their annual appointment with the Tax Office.

The relevant deadline expires next Thursday at noon and according to the AADE data, 6,145,201 taxpayers had submitted a declaration until Friday, i.e. 95.6% of those who had submitted last year (6,426,032 declarations).

According to these data, for 64% of the declarations, no additional tax arises, since the settlement is either zero or credit.

Let’s look at the resulting data in detail:

1. 48.03% of the declarations, i.e. 2,951,544, have a zero clearing statement.

2. With a credit statement, it is 16.77%, i.e. 1,030,552 statements and the average refund amount is 387 euros. Of these, the 691,706 taxpayers who had no debts to the Tax Office have already received the amount of the refund, while for the rest an offset has been made with debts they had.

3. With debit settlement there are 2,199,985 declarations or a rate of 35.8%. The average additional amount that these taxpayers are required to pay amounts to 1,471 euros.

It should be noted that those who had not submitted a declaration until July 31 and did so afterwards will have to pay a double installment, the one for August and the one for July.

Regarding the 3% discount, this has ceased to apply to those who did not submit their declaration by the end of July. The last installment is scheduled to be paid at the end of February 2024.

For those taxpayers who receive a debt settlement statement, they have the possibility to repay the tax in various ways and in more than 8 installments provided by the Ministry of Finance.

The legislation provides the possibility for public debtors to make use of the permanent regulation of the Ministry of Finance.

Income tax can be repaid:

• Lump sum payment. If the tax bill was paid in full by July 31, the taxpayer secured a 3% discount.

• Fixed setting. The fixed arrangement offers up to 24 installments which, however, bear interest. The interest rate reaches 4.5% for the 12 installments and over 6% for the 24 installments. In order to be included in the arrangement, no installment of the settlement debt needs to have become overdue. The application for inclusion in the regulation must be completed and submitted electronically together with a relevant responsible declaration

• For those who have a credit card and the available limit can pay the tax in up to 12 interest-free monthly installments.

At the same time, it should be noted that those who have already submitted a declaration or will submit it in the coming days and find errors and omissions that increase the final bill, then they have the option of submitting a new, this time amending, tax declaration, without paying a fine. Of course, this should happen by August 31, after which the fine prescribed by law will be imposed.

Also, it should be noted that they will be able, if required, to resubmit, together with the corrective income tax return, the E2 or E3 forms that accompany the E1 form.

In the event that the taxpayer proceeds to submit an amended return, the data that has been completed in the initial return (in the E1 form) and in the forms (E2 and E3) are automatically transferred to the new return to be submitted.