Nearly 90,000 additional “auditors” were recruited in eight days by the Independent State Revenue Authority. These are citizens who have installed the Appodixi application on their mobile phones and can scan receipts to check if they are genuine or not. This is a large target group, 18 times the size of AADE auditors and 5,000 tax officials.

So it may have started as a game for the taxpayers, but many, when they discovered that tax evasion was rampant, took it personally by checking all the receipts they receive in their transactions. They started scanning and forwarded the problematic receipts using the “Tax” command. Approximately 2,150 checks are sent through the app daily for further control. The findings are of great interest, and complaints have already begun.

It is impressive that the first fine has already been imposed, which, together with the fines provided for by law, exceeds 500,000 euros. Of course, in this whole process, an important incentive for applicants is the reward that they will receive in cases where it is found that the issued receipt is counterfeit or counterfeit. Although the Ministry of Finance has not yet submitted a regulation to Parliament, information indicates that the premium that applicants will receive will be 10 times the amount of the receipt, with a possible cap of €2,000. However, there is another side that does not seem to care about the bonus, but simply contributes to efforts to curb tax evasion.

About 2,000 receipts are sent electronically to the authorities every day for further control.

Undoubtedly, the Ministry of Finance reports that those who violated the tax mechanisms will rush to return them by issuing genuine receipts. The fines are steep and in some cases unaffordable. The final blow to those hiding taxable material and issuing false receipts will come in 2023, finance officials say, when cash registers are connected to 836,000 POS.

According to the latest AADE data, over eight days, 17,231 receipts were sent to the tax administration for verification, that is, more than 2,150 per day. Of these, 8,058 were named complaints and 9,173 were anonymous. It has been established that most of the complaints are related to receipts that entrepreneurs did not submit on time to the myDATA online platform. In fact, entrepreneurs who “forgot” about their obligation received an email from AADE to inform the platform about the transactions that took place, and at the same time they were warned that from November 1, those who do not comply with the obligation of timely transfer will be fined, and their activities will be suspended for up to 96 hours. According to available data, 80% of the appeals relate to the non-delivery of the receipt to the tax office, and the rest, approximately 3,500, will be checked, as the receipt turns out to be falsified.

For example, over the past few days, a taxpayer has scanned a receipt they received from a gas station and submitted it to AADE because the application identified it as a problem. Immediately, a team of inspectors went to gas stations, where they discovered that station managers were issuing receipts relating to a different type, quantity, and cost of fuel than what was being transmitted through the I/O system and tax mechanism in the AADE database. That is, a citizen delivered gasoline for 80 euros, received a receipt of the same denomination, but when scanning the receipt, the system found that the receipt declared at the tax office costs 20 euros. Fines and tax sanctions in the amount of 500,000 euros were imposed on the owner of the gas station. The gas station was also sealed off by AADE inspectors. The auditors are also looking for a company that created illegal software, and if it is found to be involved in a tax crime, it will be fined accordingly.

Similar incidents were found in catering establishments as well as in a large retail chain. It is noted that only taxpayers who have filed an official complaint, and if the inspection authorities reveal facts of tax evasion, will receive an appropriate allowance, which, as mentioned above, has not yet been fixed by law.