The latest “glitch” in a stricter compliance regime threatens to tack on an even greater income tax burden to thousands of already tax-swamped Greek wage-earners, pensioners and professional farmers who in 2017 covered significant amounts of consumer spending with e-banking transactions.
The latest “glitch” in a stricter compliance regime threatens to tack on an even greater income tax burden to thousands of already tax-swamped Greek wage-earners, pensioners and professional farmers who in 2017 covered significant amounts of consumer spending with e-banking transactions.
The problem lies in the fact that Greece’s thrice-recapitalized systemic banks still cannot differentiate between e-transactions made between consumers and businesses for the purchase of goods or services, and those that are simple transfers of funds between one depositor to another, including the owners and managers of various busineses.
At present, each taxpayer in Greece must cover a certain portion of yearly spending and purchases with electronic bank transactions (credit cards, debit cards etc.) in order to build a deductible for the year’s calculation of income taxes.
The threshold that an individual taxpayer must exceed is between 8,636 and 9,545 euros per year, i.e. e-transactions reaching these figures.
If the amount of e-transactions is not reached, a taxpayer faces a 22-percent tax on income considered as “unjustified”.