Once again, following the exposure of tax evasion at major retail chains, attempts are being made to create the impression that “tampered cash registers” are behind the concealment of revenue, the Association of Importers and Manufacturers of Cash Register Systems (SEKT) said in a statement.
The same thing happened recently in the case of a well-known chain under investigation for concealing substantial revenue.
In this case, however, the familiar refrain about tampered cash registers was quickly shown to be hollow, as the authorities described in detail how the company concealed its revenue. It became clear that the business was not using cash registers.
We read and heard about specially designed software that ran on a computer and printed receipts at will on a standard receipt printer.
Once again, we urge anyone who has reservations to contact the relevant department of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE), which will confirm that over at least the past 20 years for which data are available, not a single case of a “tampered cash register” has been identified.
But that is not all. Misleading information from those with a vested interest in discrediting fiscal cash registers shows no sign of abating.
Claims that cash registers are being phased out, that retail receipts will have to be issued through a service provider, and that fiscal electronic mechanisms are outdated systems that no longer meet businesses’ needs are far from the truth. They create a false impression and are intended to push businesses into replacing their cash registers with “new systems” that will, of course, saddle them with additional costs.
To set the record straight, we should inform anyone without sufficient knowledge of today’s fiscal cash register systems that they are characterised by a high level of technological capability, incorporate the latest technologies and, besides issuing retail receipts, meet all recent tax requirements, including issuing electronic invoices through a service provider and issuing digital movement documents.
Anyone wondering why fiscal cash register systems have stood firm despite the attacks against them, and remain in use both abroad (for example, in Italy, where there are 1.6 million such systems) and in Greece, where almost 250,000 fiscal cash register systems are in operation, should consider two obvious, simple reasons:
They provide complete security for business owners and the state because they are self-contained, closed systems. They independently create the tax receipt, record its tax data and send them automatically to the tax authorities’ systems; they also issue and print the receipt themselves. This entire process complies with the state’s strict technical specifications and takes place without the operator being able to intervene.
They are simple and quick to operate and provide users with complete autonomy, with no reliance on the quality of the internet connection or even on the electricity supply.
For these reasons, fiscal cash registers remain the best choice for every small and medium-sized retail business.