Over 5,000 are taxpayers who started professional activity from April 1st, and according to the new regime of filing statements VATat the end of May should submit their first monthly statement.
The newly established businesses and the young professionals who launched work in April and keep in with simplistic books, according to a decision by the Independent Public Revenue Commander George Pitsilis, are compulsorily integrated into the new monthly filing system. It is estimated that about 30,000 professionals and small individual businesses will be in this category and submit VAT with the month instead of a quarter, according to ERTNEWS.
The next stop on July 1st. From that date, the measure also extends to those who began a professional activity between January 1, 2024 and 31 March 2025.
On the contrary, those who were registered in the tax register until December 31, 2023, do not automatically be included in the new framework, but are given the optional transition to the monthly model from October 1, 2025, if they wish.
The purpose of the changes, to improve the tax compliance, and – above all – to tackle the phenomenon of “missing traders” who, with the previous system, started their professional activity, normally received VAT, and when it was time to pay the tax resulted in tax.
“Sports” was mainly practiced by:
- Businesses – “comets” operating for a few months, received VAT and closed without giving it.
- Newly established companies operating the quarterly system to delay or avoid payments.
- Taxpayers – natural persons who intended to leave the country.
- The new process, in addition to enhancing transparency, acts as a mechanism of timely detection of suspicious cases.
The gap
The measures gradually taken to reduce tax evasion, coupled with electronic transactions, have led to a significant reduction in the so -called VAT vacuum in Greece in recent years.
According to the Commission data, it is estimated that the country has managed to reduce VAT gap from 29% in 2017 to 13.7% today, and the target is to further reduce to 5% by 2029, a percentage corresponding to the average of EU countries.
The exemptions
The issue has been raised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and for VAT exemptions that are currently applicable to comparable goods and services. The Fund describes them as “ineffective tax spending”, arguing that they should be gradually abolished.
According to budget data, 75 categories of goods and services are excluded from the imposition of VAT with the benefit of consumers, professionals and businesses reaching a total of EUR 968 million. Of these, the biggest “footprint” has exceptions of € 479.6 million in the private education sector.
It is recalled that as of January 1, 2024, the reduced VAT rates were applied during the pandemic in transport, gyms, dance schools, cinemas, as well as public health -related goods, with the budgetary cost of € 305 million per year.