At the same time, everything aboutBusinesses using tax mechanisms must submit their data to the tax office within a day. This development will allow the tax administration find out in real time (live) when a transaction occurred.

In fact, at the moment, the tax office has information about receipts issued through tax mechanisms when making cash transactions, but there is no information about transactions made with cards. However, sectors with very high tax evasion have already started and are sending receipt details to AADE.

In particular, at the present stage, public catering enterprises with 110,000 cashiers send checks every 3 hours, gas stations with 13,500 cashiers – every 1 hour. In fact, gas stations report the quantity and type of fuel in the data they send, data that makes it easier for the Treasury to know about fuel consumption and plan its policies during this challenging time. The rest of the companies send data every 24 hours, with the publication of a daily aggregated movement (the so-called “Z”). The goal of AADE, in collaboration with the General Secretariat for Information Systems, is to have a transmission occur every 10-15 minutes. It is noted that for companies that have fallen under the microscope of auditors, AADE has the opportunity to further reduce the frequency of receipts.

As the commander of the ADE G.Pitsilis told “K”: “Together with the Ministry of Finance, we are creating a legislative, regulatory and at the same time digital business environment that allows you to control transactions in real time. Complementing the work of e-books, myDATA, cash register interface and POS is another step towards protecting consistent business and ensuring that the taxes that citizens pay on their transactions go where they should and are needed.”

It is noted that in the near future the financial staff and AADE will submit legislation to Parliament that will provide for fines and sanctions for those who do not submit receipt details within the deadlines applicable to each branch.

The new procedures are expected to significantly limit tax evasion, while at the same time it will be largely aware of the VAT it must collect as well as the turnover of each business. In fact, with the help of new systems that will be activated in a few months, AADE will be able to export statistics on the turnover of every branch of the Greek economy. This information will help audit agencies plan audits. That is, if a company declares income or VAT paid by it is lower than the industry average, it will be checked for tax evasion.

The interconnection of cash registers with POS since the beginning of 2023 is assessed as limiting the opportunities for tax evasion and VAT losses. The auditors found that many businesses do not issue retail receipts in their transactions with their customers using credit or debit cards. In other words, while the POS accepts the transaction, the merchant either does not cut the check at all or issues a check for a smaller amount. At the same time, the new process will put an end to the “monkey” cash registers, as they will all be connected to the POS.

No more tax evasion tricks with electronic payments and monkey checkouts.

A mandatory communication protocol between cashiers and POS requires the issuance of a check when paying by card. POS will not be able to make a “free” collection, but will have to receive an order from the cashier based on a specific check. This is how the phenomenon of paying at the POS without issuing a receipt or with an order form is interpreted, emphasizes AADE.

Process

Below are the stages of processing payments with plastic money since the beginning of the year by pairing electronic fiscal mechanisms (EFM) with payment card acceptance terminals (EFT POS):

1. The transaction starts with the tax electronic mechanism (FEM), i.e. modern cash registers for retail operations. The operator (employee or shop owner) selects “pay by card” and FIM sends a corresponding request to the EFT/POS card payment system.

2. The EFT/POS system automatically acknowledges receipt of the request to the tax mechanism, suspending it until a result is received.

3. The POS connects to the payment service provider (bank or similar payment service) and receives information if there has been (a) online approval or (b) offline approval, or (c) offline rejection or (d) transaction abort.

4. The EFT/POS system responds to the FIM with the end result: rejection or approval. Simultaneously with the approval, it also sends the basic details of the transaction (such as transaction number, confirmation code, etc.) as well as the data to print the FIM receipt, if it supports it.

5. Tax mechanism – FIM confirms receipt of the final result. In the event that this confirmation is not documented by the EFT/POS system for any reason, then EFT/POS creates an appropriate flag that the transaction was not processed by the tax mechanism.

POS expansion in the market

The expansion of POS to all economic activities is planned by the financial staff. The goal, according to the Treasury, is to limit tax evasion by increasing the number of electronic transactions and create a payment culture similar to that of the EU countries, where a very large percentage of citizens use cards for almost all of their transactions. .
And the truth is that while the government encourages citizens to pay by card, for example, most taxis do not have POS as it is not mandatory. In this regard, all branches that are not part of the POS system will be rechecked and appropriate decisions will be made to extend the mandatory measure. More than 110 activities are included in the corresponding list included in the POS, and with the mandatory installation of POS, all activities will be included. Today, theaters, cinemas, taxis, kiosks, and other categories of freelancers have no POS obligations.

It is expected that agreements with electronic platforms, as well as the data that the tax administration will extract from sectors of the economy, will lead to the limitation of tax evasion and transactions without evidence. Already in the previous period, AADE, with the help of data sent by delivery platforms to AADE, identified catering establishments that hid revenues of 5.2 million euros and, accordingly, VAT. At the same time, enterprises in the tourism sector were identified that did not declare income from short-term rentals.

These are cases where specific companies did not issue receipts for more than 500 accommodation packages booked through well-known short-term rental platforms. AADE auditors identified suspicious businesses using special software and matched orders from the platforms with the receipts they issued, imposing statutory fines.

In addition, in cases where there is a significant decline in revenue, especially below the industry average, AADE will activate the audit mechanism by conducting an audit within five years.