By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

The 1st of August has passed and those catering businesses that have not replaced their old cash registers with new type ones (FIMAS or FTM or ADIME Restaurant) are at risk of high fines. It is estimated that there are approximately 15,000 businesses in the risk zone that have not completed the process.

These in theory….In practice these the 15,000 businesses they will have until the end of August to comply as the Ministry, according to information from skai.gr, tacitly granted an extension by accepting the “extenuating circumstances” invoked by GSEVEE in its announcement. According to the announcement, the 15,000 are overdue not because they didn’t want to but because they couldn’t. This is because either the new equipment is not available in the market or the companies that supply or install it cannot meet the requests due to summer holidays.

In the decision of the Ministry of Finance, the fact that it did not want to disrupt the operation of the focus at the peak of the tourist season was certainly taken into account, as the relevant fine is not negligible. On the contrary, if imposed, it could threaten the very existence of businesses as for the issuance of documents by an unapproved tax mechanism the penalty is equal to 15% of the revenues of the businesses. So, in the controls that will be carried out in the next few days, the relative tolerance from AADE will be shown until August 31 (GSEVEE had requested an extension until September 30).

The new type of cash registers are pivotal in AADE’s effort to combat tax evasion as they enable it to have a complete picture of all pending orders even for open tables. In other words, as the head of AADE, Giorgos Pitsilis, has pointed out, someone cannot close a cash register if they have open tables, i.e. order slips that have not been proofed. The new machines have the ability to “read” and automatically update AADE even for the “open tables” in the store, i.e. for all pending orders. Each individual order will be immediately entered in the tax memory of the cash register.
Taverns, restaurants, ouzos, beer bars and all shops that serve meals or snacks or table food are liable to install them

On August 31st another deadline – in this case not implicit – is coming up for around 800,000 freelancers and self-employed people who have to link their business account to the IRIS system in order to enable their clients to pay in this way as well if they desire it.

The fine if they do not connect to IRIS is €1500 and €1000 if they do not declare their business account to AADE.