The use of illegally modified cash registers deprives the state of €300-400m in tax revenue annually, estimates taxman’s FS president František Imrecze. The modified fiscal cash registers are programmed to ignore saving some receipts, thus underreporting sales. Imrecze says the volume of this tax fraud has been falling recently, but there are still producers and service firms that organize this.
This wouldn’t be surprising if Slovakia was not one of the countries which introduced fiscalization to combat tax evasion, starting from March 1st 2009. Their choice of legislative concept and technology was obviously wrong.
Action named “Copperfield” involved 130 inspectors who inspected 31 establishments and seized 25 EFDs (electronic fiscal devices), each one taken to further forensic expertise. Total damage (underreporting) from seized 25 cash registers is estimated at around 4 million euros. The market size in Slovakia is 11300 EFDs.
Last week, the police accused a group of fraudsters and charged them with €4m in tax fraud due to manipulating EFD software. They face 3-10 years in prison.
In this area, estimates of the financial management of the overall damage to evade VAT and income tax
from 300 to 400 million euros. “Fraud is manifested mainly when cash receipts issued to customers are not captured in the fiscal memory” said Imrecze.
“Fraud is organised by criminals, involving some device manufacturers and some service organizations,” said Imrecze.
