2024-07-17 07:35:23
The management of the Independent Public Revenue Authority (AADE) and the leadership of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance are jointly studying measures to reward debtors who repay their installments on time, but also generally consistent taxpayers.
The aim is to prevent the losses of arrangements by those debtors who remain in them by paying the amounts of the monthly installments on time, but also to provide incentives so that the current tax obligations, such as the submission of declarations and the payment of the debts arising from them, are fulfilled as soon as possible, so as to eliminate the effects of extensions to submission deadlines.
According to information, one of the measures that will be taken in favor of taxpayer debtors who pay their installments on time and at the same time fulfill their other tax obligations on time will be the significant reduction of the rates with which the withholding of amounts is calculated in cases where they request the issuance of proof of tax awareness for the collection of money from the State or for the sale of real estate.
These percentages currently range from 10% up to 70% for the cases in which the proofs are requested for the collection of money from the State and are formed according to the progress made in the payment of the regulated debts of the applicants for the proofs. That is, the greater the percentage of the total regulated debt that has been paid in installments, the smaller the withholding rate imposed on the amount that the applicant wants to collect from the State. In addition, for the cases in which the evidence is requested for the sale of real estate, the withholding rates on the sales prices vary between 50% and 70%.
In particular, according to the current legislation:
1.If the reason for issuing the tax awareness certificate is the collection of money from the State, then the withholding percentage on the collection is reduced according to the repayment rate of the arrangement or arrangements to which the debts have been subject. The withholding rates on the collected amount are defined as follows:
a) 10%, when a total amount of more than 70% of the settled debt has been paid through the settlement,
b) 30%, when a total amount of more than 50% up to 70% of the settled debt has been paid through the settlement,
c) 50%, when a total amount of more than 30% up to 50% of the settled debt has been paid through the settlement,
d) 70%, when a total amount of up to 30% of the settled debt has been paid through the settlement. The above withholding rates are increased by 10 percentage points if the amount of the remaining adjusted debt is much higher than the average disposable income of the last three years.
2. When the reason for granting the certificate is the transfer of a property or the establishment of a real right over it for a compelling reason with a price, the withholding percentage on the price, as long as the price does not fall short of the objective value, is defined as follows:
a) When the applicant for the receipt has overdue settled debts, 70% of the price and up to the amount of overdue settled debts.
b) When the applicant for the receipt has total overdue basic debts of more than 50,000 euros under suspension of collection, regardless of whether they have been subject to a partial payment arrangement, 50% of the price and up to the amount of the total overdue debts under suspension of collection, including charges of these, i.e. the surcharges/interest and the late payment penalty.
The above withholding rates are considered to be reduced as long as the taxpayers who request the proof of awareness are consistent with the repayment of their installments of arrangements but also with the fulfillment of their further current tax obligations, such as the timely submission of returns and the timely payment of the resulting taxes From these.
Scalable discounts
In addition, according to what was recently announced by the new Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance, Christos Dimas, as a measure to reward consistent taxpayers, the provision of discounts on the taxes due, which will scale between 2% and 4%, is being considered from next year, or even 5% depending on how early the tax returns are submitted and how early the due amounts are paid in one lump sum.
Binding of accounts
It is noted, finally, that according to the Operational Plan of AADE for the current year, from December the procedure already legislated from 2019 will be activated, according to which debtors with frozen bank accounts will be able to gradually recover their control by gaining unrestricted limit even above 1,250 euros.
Zero visibility for extension
There is no plan from AADE to extend the deadline for submitting tax returns, which expires on July 26, the head of the Independent Authority, Giorgos Pitsilis, said, speaking to a radio station yesterday. Until yesterday, the declarations that had been submitted were close to 5 million, according to Mr. Pitsilis, who emphasized that, at a rate of submission of 130,000 declarations per day, “the numbers are coming out”, that is, 6.5 – 6 are also possible. 6 million of the declarations to have been submitted by July 26.
However, for their part, the accountants-tax experts insist that it is impossible to submit all the declarations until July 26, emphasizing in particular the problems that have been identified with the pre-filled and automatically submitted declarations of employees and pensioners as well as with declarations of other cases of taxpayers , such as the self-employed subject to the new system of imputed taxation (where there have also been problems with recognition of exemptions and exemptions for the disabled, as well as other problems).