Fiscalization

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.

Greek government is installing 400,000 ‘Point of Sale’ software systems – computerised cash registers that provide sophisticated financial, sales and inventory reports. These are designed to be compatible with the EU’s Digital Single Market (DSM) policy, and to minimise the opportunities for tax fraud. The government also plans to apply the new OECD Standard for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters during 2016: participant countries will cooperate online, notifying tax authorities of assets held or payments made connected with accounts exceeding USD$250,000.

Slovenian Financial Administration with introduction of the mandatory use of fiscal cash registers starts new fiscal lottery game to encourage consumers to ask for the fiscal receipts.

Mobile app “Verify Receipt”

For the participation in this game consumer must collect 10 different fiscal receipts issued by different goods or service providers.

This can be done in three ways:

Hospitality sector in Belgium, with 25,000 Euros or more in revenue from the sale of food and drinks, starting January 1st must have a certified cash register/POS connected to the fiscal black box.

According to one survey of 528 restaurants, taverns and breweries, 45% of them have raised prices due to the introduction of the black box, in an average increase of 10% for meals and for drinks. One quarter of respondents also intend to increase their prices as the 45% who have already done it.

First month since the start of the fiscal law implementation (use of certified cash registers) in Slovenia has ended. In this period, inspection controls were only preventive and not punishable in accordance with the new law. In the following period controls will become more severe and will include heavy fines, as officials announced.

Tax inspectors revealed irregularities in 5.5% of registered taxpayers (approximately 7,000 visits). The most common irregularities were:

Greece has turned to a German state government to seek help to tackle tax evasion, AP announced today.

About 50 Greek tax officials will be trained by the Revenue Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia, where most successful action was conducted in persuading German citizens to repatriate capital they have hidden abroad to avoid taxation. This action resulted in 1 billion euros in extra revenue since 2010.

The government of the Russian Federation submitted to the state Duma a bill providing for gradual transition of sales control and cash equipment (контрольно-кассовой техники – KKT), transmitting information about payments to the tax authorities in electronic form. The transition needs to happen within 2017.

Background: It is mandatory to use the cash register in the territory of the Russian Federation by all organizations and individual entrepreneurs at carrying out cash payments or payment cards established by Article 2 of the Federal Law of May 22, 2003 № 54-FZ.

The National Board of Revenue plans to persuade all large and medium stores to install electronic cash registers (ECRs) in an effort to curb dodging of value-added tax on retail sales.

Along the way NBR is launching a spot survey activity on shops and other business establishments for the first time in a bid to bring eligible entities under value-added tax net and enhance revenue collection from the sector. The survey teams will also detect the shops eligible to install electronic cash register or point of sale machines for maintaining sales records accurately.

A “certified cash register” system will apply as from 2 January 2016, under which all legal persons and individuals that carry out cash (or cash-equivalent) transactions and are required to keep books and records will have to use certified tax registers (unless specifically exempted by statute).

Fiji loses over $150m annually due to fraudulent practices by some businesses in the country.

Some supermarkets were into “creative accounting” by having additional cash registers and allegedly falsifying sales data, which were not in the company’s books of records.

Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority (FRCA) has stated it will treat any falsified VAT return with all seriousness and offenders will have to face the full brunt of the law including imprisonment.