2024-07-23 05:08:05
A reduction from 5 to 3 years of the limitation period for the State’s right to conduct a tax audit now applies to those businesses that have chosen from 2020 to issue their tax information through electronic invoicing providers and have transferred the data to the myData platform.
This favorable regulation, which is provided for in article 71F of the Income Tax Code, is activated for the first time this year.
Specifically, for those businesses that declared in December 2020 to the Independent Public Revenue Authority (AADE) the choice of an electronic invoicing Provider for the issuance of their tax information, issued in December 2020 through a Provider tax information worth more than 50% of their total turnover for that month and transferred to the myData platform all their tax data issued in the year 2020 by the end of February 2021, the State’s right to audit them for tax purposes for the year 2020 expires on December 31, 2024.
Also, the audit right of the State for the years 2021 and 2022 expires on 12-31-2025 and 12-31-2026, respectively. As long as they continued to issue their tax information through e-Invoicing Providers from 2023 onwards, the three-year limitation period still applies for 2023 and subsequent tax years.
For those businesses that have chosen or are choosing from 2021 onwards to issue their tax information through Providers and continue to use this method of issuing tax information, a three-year limitation period applies for tax years 2021 and beyond. In particular, the provisions of Article 71F of the Civil Code provide that:
- For those companies and individual businesses that declared in December 2020 to the AADE that they choose the electronic issuance and receipt of documents through an electronic invoicing provider, the limitation period for the State’s right to conduct a tax audit in fiscal year 2020 and in each subsequent fiscal year was reduced from five years to three years.
- For those companies and individual businesses that declared in 2021 to the AADE that they choose the electronic issuance and receipt of documents through an electronic invoicing provider, the limitation period for the State’s right to conduct a tax audit in the fiscal year 2021 and in each subsequent fiscal year was reduced from five years to three years.
- For those companies and individual businesses that declared in 2022 to the AADE that they choose the electronic issuance and receipt of documents through an electronic invoicing provider, the limitation period for the State’s right to conduct a tax audit in the fiscal year 2022 and in each subsequent fiscal year was reduced from five years to three years.
- For those companies and individual businesses that declared in 2023 to the AADE that they choose the electronic issuance and receipt of documents through an electronic invoicing provider, the limitation period for the State’s right to conduct a tax audit in fiscal year 2024 and in each subsequent fiscal year was reduced from five years to three years.
- In general, for those companies and individual businesses that declare to AADE that they choose the electronic issuance and receipt of documents through an electronic invoicing Provider, the limitation period for the State’s right to conduct a tax audit in each subsequent fiscal year is reduced from five years to three years. E.g. if the return is made this year, the reduction of the statute of limitations from five years to three years applies from tax year 2025 onwards.
- For those businesses that choose an electronic invoicing provider only to receive the documents, the limitation period of the State’s audit right is reduced from five years to four years. In addition, in accordance with the provisions of Article 71F of the Tax Code, for those companies and sole proprietorships that choose to exclusively apply electronic invoicing, the advantage of priority processing of their requests for tax refunds applies.
For these companies and sole proprietorships, the payment of refunds must be completed within 45 days from the date of submission of the refund applications, while for the rest of the businesses the 90-day deadline still applies. Besides, the decision numbered A.1258/23.11.2020 of the governor of AADE, Giorgos Pitsilis, which specifies the implementation details of article 71F of the CFE provides, in detail, the following:
Scope of application
Anonymous Companies, Limited Liability Companies, Private Capital Companies, Limited Partnerships, Limited Partnerships and sole proprietorships that choose to use the Services of an Electronic Data Issuance Provider for the issuance, transmission and receipt of documents, in order to benefit from the benefits of article 71F of Law 4172 /2013, as applicable, are required to submit a “Declaration of Exclusive Release of Data through a Provider” electronically to the Tax Administration.
This declaration concerns all the wholesale and retail documents issued by the aforementioned entities, as well as the cases that issue documents for either exclusively wholesale or exclusively retail transactions.
The choice of electronic invoicing through a Provider, for the issuance of documents, also implies the acceptance of receiving electronic invoices and the obligation to submit a second declaration for the acceptance – receipt of them is omitted.
In order to benefit from the benefits of Article 71F of Law 4172/2013, as applicable, the entities receiving the documents in the above case have a similar obligation, which are obliged to submit a “Declaration of Acceptance of Receipt of Electronic Invoices” for all the documents that they accept. The selection and declaration of electronic invoicing through a Provider can be revoked with a “Declaration of Revocation”.
Content of statements
In its content “Declaration of Exclusive Release of Data through a Provider”, which is submitted by the Issuer, at least the following information shall be indicated: a) Entity Tax Identification Number. b) Entity Name. c) Exclusive issue of data through a Provider (yes/no). d) Date of declaration of commencement of exclusive issue. e) Date of declaration of revocation. 3 For each contract of the Issuer with a Provider, at least the following information shall be indicated: f) Provider’s tax identification number. g) Name of Provider. h) License Number of Provider Services. i) Date of entering into an entity contract with the Provider. j) Effective date of the contract. k) Wholesale_yes_no/Retail_yes_no/. l) Exclusively Wholesale (yes/no). m) Exclusively Retail (yes/no). n) Declaration Number. o) Date of submission of Declaration.
In its content “Declaration of Acceptance of Receipt of Electronic Invoices”, which is submitted by the Recipient Entity, at least the following information is indicated: a) Tax Identification Number of the Recipient Entity. b) Name of Recipient Entity. c) Declaration Number. d) Date of submission of Declaration e) Email address that can receive electronic invoices.
In its content “Declaration of Withdrawal”, which is submitted by both the Issuer and the Recipient as the case may be, at least the following information shall be indicated: a) Entity Tax Identification Number. b) Entity Name. c) Initial Declaration number. d) Date of initial Declaration. e) Revocation Notice Number. f) Date of submission of Notice of Revocation.
Entities (companies and sole proprietorships) that choose to issue and accept documents through a Provider are required to electronically submit the above declarations on the AADE website.
The “Declaration of Exclusive Release of Data through a Provider” is submitted within ten (10) days from the effective date of the contract with the respective Provider and within the previous fiscal year from the fiscal year of the start of calculation for the granting of the incentives.
Especially for entities that declare the start of operations for the first time, as long as the declaration is submitted at the time of submission of the declaration of start of operations, the incentives of article 71F’ of Law 4172/2013 are provided from the first fiscal year of operation, provided that the entity does not revoke the billing election statement within the next tax year.
In particular, the above declaration obligation also applies in the case of an entity that carries out wholesale and retail transactions and has chosen a Provider only for its wholesale or only for its retail transactions. In addition to the obligation to submit the above statement, the entity and the Provider submit and accept, respectively, a special authorization in the “Authorizations” section of Taxisnet.
The “Declaration of Acceptance of Receipt of Electronic Invoices” is submitted once (1) and is valid until revoked.
Entities issuing documents using Electronic Document Issuance Provider Services, and in order to transmit them electronically, can check electronically and through their Provider the counterparty’s Declaration of Acceptance and receive information on sending the documents (email address, contracts with Providers).
The “Declaration of Withdrawal”, for the entity operating as an Issuer, is submitted by the twentieth (20th) day of the following month from the date of issuance of the last document that the entity issued electronically through a Provider. Companies and sole proprietorships that choose to use electronic invoicing exclusively have the advantage of priority processing of their tax refund requests.
Particular issues
Entities that choose to use the Services of the Electronic Document Issuance Provider (EDISP) for the issuance, transmission and receipt of documents (wholesale, retail, wholesale and retail transactions) have the option of gradually joining the Provider’s exclusive use within one (1) month from the effective date of the relevant “Declaration of Exclusive Release of Data through a Provider”.
Exceptionally for the tax year 2020, the incentives of article 71F of Law 4172/2013, apply to entities, if cumulatively: i. The relevant option to use the Services of an Electronic Document Issuance Provider for the issuance, transmission and receipt of documents was declared until 12/31/2020. ii. The effective date of the contract with the Provider was until 01/12/2020 with a corresponding special authorization of the Provider to Taxisnet within ten (10) days from the date of conclusion of the relevant contract. iii. The sum of the net value of the revenue documents with a date of issue from 01/12/2020 to 31/12/2020 issued using YPAEES was equal to or greater than 50% of the total gross revenue for the month of December 2020. iv. The data issued from 01/01/2020 to 12/31/2020, were transmitted until 02/28/2021 to the digital platform myData of AADE and concern all the required data, according to the under data A.1138/2020, as applicable.