US Style Tax Audits In Greece?

(Photo credit: Infrogmation)

A ministerial decision to introduce US-style tax audits was announced on Thursday following pressure from troika officials. The move will pave the way for the realization of tax audits in which the income is going to be determined by indirect methods such as calculation of expenses with credit cards or the amount of taxpayers’ deposits.

The introduction of indirect techniques to determine controlled taxpayers’ income is going to be included in a tax bill that was passed during the Papademos - Venizelos government, or about 14 months ago. According to the proposed bill, the income of the taxpayer could be determined based on one or more of the following indirect auditing methods:

• 1 - mark up method
• 2 - source and application of funds method
• 3 - net worth method
• 4 - unit and volume method
• 5 - bank deposits and cash expenditure method

All the above mentioned methods can be used to determine the taxable income of taxpayers, including the gross income, output and taxable profits of traders based on the generally accepted auditing principles and techniques.