These are mainly employees with very low incomes, whose income tax returns were pre-filled this year, submitted automatically and cleared by AADE on July 2 and include amounts of consumption and other expenses higher than their incomes.
Dribble…
In order to avoid this risk, they should hurry and submit through TACHISnet until July 26th amending income tax returns, in which they should include additional amounts of income and income that legally justify the negative differences between pre-filled amounts of income and expenses .
The declarations of these taxpayers, specifically in codes 049-050 of table 7, include pre-filled expenditure amounts for purchases of consumer goods and receiving services, which either exceed the meager pre-filled amounts of income or cover percentages of more than 60%-70% of said incomes and in combination with other amounts of expenses that have been pre-filled in other codes of these declarations, but also with the amounts of the presumptions for houses and I.X. cars, again give the impression that these taxpayers have shown incomes that fall far short of their total expenses.
And given that such cases of taxpayers are considered by the AADE tax audit services to be suspected of tax evasion, there is a high probability that all these unsuspecting taxpayers will be selected for a tax audit within the next 2-3 years and – if then they fail to justify the differences between incomes and costs, which the auditors will pinpoint – they will be asked to pay exorbitant amounts of additional taxes and fines later.
The selection of these taxpayers for audit will be made, based on the provision of paragraph 2 of article 28 of the Income Tax Code, which provides that: “The income of natural persons, regardless of whether it comes from the exercise of business activity, can be determined on the basis of any available element or indirect control methods in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Tax Procedure Code, when the amount of the declared income is not sufficient to cover personal living expenses or in case there is an increase in property, which is not covered by the declared income”.
Dusting…
In these audits, the competent tax services of AADE open bank accounts and redefine the taxable incomes at much higher levels than those shown in the tax returns, taking into account the amounts transferred through the taxpayers’ bank accounts as well as the already known data for taxpayers’ actual consumer spending. More specifically, they apply the famous “indirect control techniques”, which are provided for in article 32 of the Tax Procedure Code (law 5104/2024) and determine the amount of taxable income based on the amount of bank deposits and its expenses.
How are we going to cover ourselves?
“Shield” the consumption of capital
In order to avoid the risk of being subsequently called for an audit after 2-3 years and then not being able to justify the income differences that the tax inspectors are likely to identify, the taxpayers in question should already, with the help of their accountants, to take care and look for all the evidence that proves that the very high expenses that appear to have been incurred in 2023, in their statements this year, were covered either by loans and credit cards from banks or by donations from their close relatives persons and their friends either from sales of their assets (real estate, cars, etc.) or with savings from income from earlier years (“capital depletion”).
Procedure
In this context, they should proceed to submit amending income tax returns for the year 2023 by filling in the relevant amounts in codes 781-782 and 787-788 of table 6 of the E1 form. In this way they will now be able to cover the seemingly unjustified differences between low incomes and high consumption and other expenses resulting from their pre-filled and automatically submitted tax returns. And since these amendments-additions they will make to their declarations cover and justify these differences already now, they will avoid the inconvenience that may entail in the future their selection for audit and their invitation for explanations by the competent tax authorities.
There is still the possibility of submitting amended returns on time for these taxpayers, as the deadline for submitting this year’s tax returns has not yet expired, but expires in 7 days, namely on July 26.
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