By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

In the presentation of the provisions of the mini-tax bill, which, according to all indications, will be put to a vote in the Parliament next week, Kostis Hatzidakis had particularly focused on the €2,500 fine provided for certain natural persons in the leadership of those public organizations (by the Director Advisor to the payroll manager which will be determined by ministerial decision) who send incorrect or late data to the AADE which are necessary for the pre-completion of tax returns.

Everyone at the time had speculated that the private agencies that also have to send such data had…shouldered her. Phew! The update from yesterday’s cabinet meeting held a bit of a surprise:

“Similarly, fines are also provided for private entities that submit annual records to the AADE, which have been observed to be either overdue or contain incorrect data” it says.

According to reports the… bell is ringing primarily for the banks charged with the correct and timely sending of interest on deposits – something that was not done last year and caused many problems – and secondarily for the private educational institutions that have to send the statements with the tuition fees that collect, which are used to calculate the presumptions.

The differences in relation to what applies to public bodies are two:

The fine here is not imposed on a natural person but on the TIN of the legal entity, i.e. the fine is imposed on the bank or the private school in this case.

The fine is much higher than the €2,500 +€50/day of delay provided for legal entities (the fines for errors in the data are smaller and escalate according to the extent) as here it is imposed on a business

An official of the Ministry of Finance clarified that the fine does NOT apply to the accounting offices of the companies that are in charge of sending the payroll of the employees, nor to the private clinics.

According to the provisions of the bill, from January 16 to the last day of February of each year from now on, all public and private sector entities that have an obligation to post data for the completion of tax returns, should upload them in a timely manner and without errors since first they will have completed their registration in a special register.
Otherwise, the fine “runs” and its daily increase.

With these provisions, the Ministry of Finance wishes to close as much as possible the windows for errors and omissions so that the pre-completion of the tax returns is possible, if possible, from the first day that the platform opens for the submission of E1.

In this way, the timetable for submitting tax returns will not be thrown into the air, which will be fixed from next year and will also provide for a greater tax deduction for those who are consistent.

Every year the platform will open on March 15th and stay open until July 15th. The tax deduction in case of a one-off payment of income tax is calculated as follows:
4% if the declaration is submitted in the first 45 operations of the application, i.e. between March 15 and April 30
3% if the declaration is made in the next 45 days, i.e. between May 1 and June 15
2% if the declaration is submitted in the last month of operation of the platform, i.e. between June 16 and July 15

For those who choose installments, repayment will be in 8 monthly installments starting from the end of July.