It was reported that during 63 inspections carried out over the past days, Greek authorities encountered 33 violations and 39 offenders, while delinquency rate exceeded 50%.
Inspectors involved in the audits indicated that new methods are being implemented in order to conceal tax evasion. Several business owners are tapping into their cash registers in order to make their daily turnover appear lower than it really is, while also making it appear as if the business has issued the right amount of receipts. This decreases VAT revenue for the state, while authorities are not able to detect any form of tax evasion.
If receipt doesn’t contain verifiable signature committing a fraud is very simple, for example: POS software can be connected to more than one printer mechanism.
One printer is called fiscal printer {official, purchased from authorized vendor, registered with Revenue Authority}, the other is plain slip printer, often referred as kitchen printer. How it works:
When reaching subtotal, to close receipt, cashier is prompted with secret function to print fiscal receipt or fake receipt:
- If cashier choose to print fiscal receipt the fiscal printer will be engaged and it will label the receipt with official receipt number and other official labels;
- If choose to print fake receipt the slip (kitchen) printer will be engaged and it will label the receipt with fake receipt number (usually adjusted to be in similarity with official printer) and other labels to remove any suspicious for customer.
Owner knows detailed local audits are rare and can be confused with lots of journal records which can be hidden on another location at the time of audit. Besides, loosing the journal record (fading thermal paper or corrupt memory of electronic journal) is sanctioned by a symbolic fine, easily afforded by tax cheaters.
Sweeping tax audits are in progress on Greek islands since last weekend and the first results show high tax evasion rates. The highest rates were recorded in hotels, restaurants and bars, where they did not issue receipts at all. But tax evasion does not only happen in the private sector, see this article from the GreekReporter.
