Tax evasion: AADE makes “leaf and feather” social media

Extensive controls on social media in order to detect the black money that is systematically traded, the special group of AADE auditors who has been charged with the specific task.

The “Rambos” of AADE make Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok a wing and a wing and other social media for the purpose of locating individuals and businesses that sell goods and services online without issuing documents but also taxpayers who do not declare the amounts they receive for the promotion of specific products.

The special algorithm

A valuable ally, as “Imerisia” writes, it is a special algorithm that “runs” combinatorial intersections uncovering tax evasion scams. The aim of the auditors is to reveal “black” sales through social media and hidden income.

The control mechanisms have been using social media “for a long time” to deal with tax evasion, said the commander of the AADE, Giorgos Pitsilis, revealing that an influencer has already been identified who was systematically evading taxes, while investigations are underway for other cases as well.

“We’ve been using social media for a long time, we’ve been using this information for a long time anyway. We had a case of an influencer who already submitted a statement of compliance, that is, he made a statement in which he agreed with the result and other cases that are currently being audited and we will say more when the time is right,” the AADE commander stressed to parapolitika, adding that” There are not a few influencers. It seems that the market has also shaped price lists according to how many followers each person has, this for us is an information that helps us to do what we call an indirect control technique” he added.

Systematic checks

The last years the auditors of the Independent Public Revenue Authority systematically monitor social media, facebook and instagram to detect cases of extensive tax evasion.

In the hunt against tax evasion, the audit authorities are using checks and cross-checks through Facebook and other Internet applications to scan for suspicious transactions and illegal trade to catch taxpayers who trade various products through their Facebook account, in attractive prices, but without declaring the specific transactions to the tax office and without paying VAT and income tax.

Especially for online sales, tax officials look at the number of friends of each business as well as customer comments on Facebook. Usually the amount of tax evasion in the cases identified by the AADE amounts to tens of thousands of euros.

“What we need to make clear is that AADE does not sit down and open the profiles and accounts of every citizen and investigate what photos they upload, if they upload photos of swimming pools or of luxury cars, they do not do such a thing. Where he focuses is on those accounts where there is business activity and there he discovers acquired taxable material which then generates revenue for the state coffers” said the press representative of the Ministry of National Economy, Homeri Tsapalos, to ERT yesterday.