Taxes and fines due to obvious errors are being written off by the Tax Office, retroactively from January 1, 2014 and regardless of whether the taxpayers have appealed to the Dispute Resolution Division or the Administrative Courts.

According to an amendment by the Ministry of Finance, taxes and fines imposed by the tax authorities are deleted and if they have been paid by the taxpayers they are returned, when the error is due to the Tax Administration.

According to ERT, the amendment gives taxpayers a new possibility to ask the AADE to review and revoke acts of the Tax Administration citing that “manifest errors” were made.

In particular:

  • The Independent Public Revenue Authority (AADE) will be able to modify or cancel a direct tax assessment or an act of administrative, estimated or corrective tax assessment or an act of imposing a fine, either at the taxpayer’s request or automatically, without the taxpayer’s request for a manifest deficiency (total or partial) of a tax liability or for an arithmetic or calculation error.
  • Arithmetic or computational errors are errors in the performance of a mathematical calculation or in the performance of an arithmetical operation and not the incorrect imposition or exemption of tax or the misapplication of the law.
  • In the event that, as a consequence of the direct determination or act of administrative, estimated or corrective tax determination, an act imposing a fine is also issued, the act in question (or the direct determination) is canceled or modified by an act of the Tax Administration. For the request for cancellation or amendment to be admissible, documents must either be provided by the taxpayer, or they must be available to the competent agency, without requiring audit verifications.

In particular, the new provision amends article 74 of the Tax Procedure Code, which regulates the possibility of revoking actions of the Tax Administration, in case of manifest errors, and defines the following:

– The deadline for the annulment of an act that has been contested in the courts and is in a pending trial expires one year after the end of the pending trial, i.e. after the issuance of an irrevocable decision, while it is not considered whether the manifest wrongdoing that constitutes the reason for annulment has been presented in the context dispute or legal action.
– Amounts that have been confirmed or paid based on the acts that are canceled, deleted or returned as the case may be, in derogation of the statutes of limitation.