Online portal for 2015 income tax declarations opens at last
The online platform for the submission of tax declarations for incomes obtained in 2014, finally opened late on Thursday after a three-month delay.
Despite the state’s desperate need for cash and that fact that, by law, the portal should be up and running as early as February every year, the electronic service for declaring the details of 2014 incomes at the General Secretariat for Information Services (www.gsis.gr) only recently became available to the millions of taxpayers in Greece.
The deadline for declarations has not changed from June 30, with the first installment for taxes due set on the final day of July. However, the lengthy delay in the opening of the online service means that an extension to the submission deadline will probably be granted, according to tax experts, as it is unlikely that taxpayers will manage to have their declarations processed and submitted within just 45 days. The online submission of declarations is compulsory.
Taxpayers are normally supposed to pay their tax dues in three installments (in July, September and November), though a good number choose the payment plan that is offered, spreading the cost across 12 months.
Despite reports that the government had been considering significant incentives to taxpayers who paid their income tax in a lump sum in July in a bid to collect as much cash as possible within a small period of time – offering a 10-15 percent discount on the entire amount due – the Finance Ministry eventually decided that taxpayers who pay all of their dues upfront will receive a discount of just 2 percent, only slightly up from 1.5 percent until last year.
This year taxpayers will also be obliged to submit an e-mail address, as well as their social security number (AMKA), for the first time.
