By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

We may be almost 3 months away from the end of the year, but at AADE they are running at a frantic pace in order to have time to check thousands of cases before they expire. According to a decision of the Supreme Court, the State loses the right to impose taxes and fines if, within a clearly defined time frame – usually 5 years – from the relevant legislation, it does not notify the taxpayer of the calculation act

Entering the final stretch, the head of the AADE Giorgos Pitsilis issued a circular to the tax authorities, providing clarifications on how the auditing authorities should act in relation to the statute of limitations cases.

Thousands of taxpayers have already been notified by message in their personal taxis section or by mail that they have “previous records” with the AADE from audits of past cases that are time-barred at the end of the year. Such cases usually concern:

-Undeclared retroactives from salaries and pensions
-Hiding income from freelancers or property owners
– Non-return of VAT
– Late submission of customer-supplier consolidated statements

Of course the mandate to the agencies is to check these cases as a priority, issue and communicate the fines or the correction of the original tax before the hourglass is empty.

The taxpayer who receives such a notice has 30 days to pay or challenge the content of the notice by filing an appeal for reconsideration of his case. Going to court is NOT an option.

According to the Pitsili circular, it is recalled that:

  • For cases from 1/1/2019 onwards, the 5-year period can be extended for one year if within the 5th year of the limitation period the taxpayer submits an initial or amending declaration or if new information concerning the specific case comes to the knowledge of the tax administration and from which a debt arises. Based on these, income tax cases of natural and legal persons who did not submit tax returns in 2017 or submitted late no later than December 31, 2022 are at risk of being time-barred.
  • In exceptional cases, a deed of estimated or corrective tax determination can be issued even 10 years after the deadline for submitting the last return in cases involving more than one return if the taxpayer has not submitted any return or if the tax authorities become aware of information about the specific case that it could not have at its disposal within 5 years.
  • Especially for the years 2012 and 2013 but also for the tax years 2014-2017, there may be a 10-year extension in cases of tax evasion that exceed €50,000 for VAT violations and €100,000 for other types of tax. Excluded are cases of issuing fake or fictitious invoices for the financial years 2012-2014 and up to October 2015 for which there is no amount limit.