Dozens of tourist areas across the islands and the mainland are “flagged” on the map of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR), as part of a total of 4,000 targeted on-site audits planned for the summer season to curb tax evasion and strengthen tax compliance.
These involve specific geographic regions of the country, business sectors, and targeted business tax identification numbers (AFM), with a… tendency toward tax evasion. Sectors of activity, seasonality, transactional behavior, and tax identification numbers (TINs) set the criteria for the audits, which last year revealed an average violation rate of 34.2%.
At the forefront of the audits will be tourist and urban areas with high transaction activity and cash usage, as well as sectors such as food service, entertainment, tourist accommodations, retail, vehicle services, services to individuals, and wholesale trade, where there is an increased risk of non-issuance or inaccurate issuance of tax documents.
For example, in the food service sector, 22,020 inspections were conducted last year, with non-compliance exceeding 32.4%, while in retail trade, out of 11,149 inspections, non-compliance stood at 29.3%.
Thiswas followed by: hotels, guesthouses, villas, travel agencies, water sports, and vehicle and boat rentals.
High violation rates (33.7%) were also found in tourism-related businesses (restaurants, cafes, beach bars, hotels, and vacation rentals).
Wholesale trade in food, pharmaceuticals, technology products, and metals is also a focus of inspections, as it is linked to a significant contribution to the VAT gap.
The regions
In highly seasonal tourist island regions such as the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, Crete, and the Ionian Islands—and more specifically Mykonos, Santorini, Paros, Naxos, Rhodes, Kos, Zakynthos, Corfu, Chania, and Heraklion, most audits will be conducted.
On these islands, there is an increased risk due to the high volume of transactions, seasonal businesses, restaurants, beach bars, accommodations, and tourist services.
Next in line for inspections are major urban centers such as Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Larissa, Volos, and Ioannina, while areas with high volumes of short-term rentals are also on the “inspection map.”
The inspections will focus on the failure to issue retail sales receipts, the issuance of inaccurate tax information, the concealment of income, or non-compliance with electronic data transmission obligations (my data), etc.
The criteria
The selection of tax identification numbers (AFM) to be audited is based on risk analysis, cross-checks of myDATA/POS/VAT data, violation history, and seasonal characteristics of high tax risk, making the audit more effective as it utilizes available data from tax returns, electronic transactions, myDATA, POS, and past tax behavior.
More specifically, the criteria for selecting the TINs to be audited are:
- Low reported receipts relative to POS, myDATA, or sector turnover.
- Frequent receipt cancellations or credit invoices.
- Failure to submit or delayed submission of documents.
- High seasonal activity with low VAT returns.
- Discrepancies between purchases and sales.
- Businesses with a history of tax violations.
- Businesses with a strong social media presence but low reported income, as well as:
- Areas with significant discrepancies between actual tourist traffic and reported revenue.
The entire audit process (geographic and sectoral distribution, qualitative characteristics, effectiveness of targeting criteria, findings, and violation rates) will be closely monitored by the Tax Compliance Directorate.