Focus on self-employed with over 200,000 euros paid into accounts
The Finance Ministry’s monitoring staff are now turning their attention to the self-employed who had over 200,000 euros credited to their bank accounts last year as well as various entities with deposits or cash withdrawals of over 300,000 euros within a year.
Minister Yannis Stournaras signed on Monday a decision asking banks to transfer detailed data on those customers to the General Secretariat of Information Systems, as they are viewed as a high-risk group as far as tax evasion is concerned.
Banks will have to submit the 2011 data by October 30 and the figures for 2012 by December 31, while data for this year and every year thereafter will have to be sent to the ministry by April 30 of the following year, according to the decision.
Using the bank data, general secretariat staff will start cross-checking income tax declarations in order to establish any instances of hidden income, undeclared acquisitions of high-value property items (i.e. real estate, yachts, luxury vehicles) etc. The banks will have to retain the data sent to the general secretariat for another three months, while the ministry will hold on to them for six years following their receipt.
Meanwhile, according to statistical data from the General Secretariat of Information Systems, taxpayers who have received a pay notice from the tax authorities after the processing of the first 2.1 million declarations for the financial year of 2013 (i.e. for incomes secured in 2012) will have to pay an average of 979 euros.
The 1,033,280 taxpayers who will have to pay their tax in up to three installments (in August, October and December) declared an average income of 167,489 euros for 2012. A total of 587,994 taxpayers will not be presented with a tax bill, while another 472,599 are entitled to a tax rebate, averaging at 238 euros. The average income declared by all 2.1 million taxpayers amounted to 12,979 euros.
From the aforementioned 1.03 million taxpayers, the state expects to collect 899.5 million euros, which breaks down into 630.9 million from income tax, 173.5 million from the solidarity tax and 95 million from the annual fee to practice a profession.
