Crack teams of Tax and Customs Authority operatives have been scouring the country's high streets to pin down tax evaders.
The May 25th purge was not aimed at offshore account holders, property owners illegally letting their luxury properties or millionaire market traders selling counterfeit goods, the target was 6,000 hairdressers to check whether or not they were issuing receipts.
The Tax and Customs Authority today reported on its national inspection which "focused on hairdressers and beauty salons," one of the sectors that allows the 15% VAT charged to be deducted from income tax returns - up to a limit of €250 per household.
This purge involved the skills of 1,100 dedicated tax inspectors who visited more than 6,000 premises and booked 400 owners, mainly because they had failed to issue an invoice or hadn’t run a payment through the special ‘taxman’s till’ that all shops now must have
The tax office said that "these taxable persons will be the subject of a rigorous monitoring of their declaratory behavior," and that "subsequent inspection procedures are envisaged in cases where high risks of non-compliance are detected," in other words, 'we'll be back.'
The Treasury says that "this is just one of many actions that have been developed" to combat tax fraud and tax evasion and that other actions in the same area are "in progress and already planned."
These other sectors are likely to be the others where VAT can come off the annual tax return, such as the maintenance and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, catering and trips to the vet.
Meanwhile, back at the office, a new computer programme has been installed that reports tax office staff who look up taxpayer declarations to see if they can afford the Jaguar they have just been spotted driving.
The government says this is due to ‘data protection’ laws but Paulo Ralha, the head of the tax workers union, says his workers will fight any attempt to knobble their power to investigate people whom they suspect of tax evasion.
This law change perpetuates the VIP taxpayer list that protected certain key politicians from being investigated. Any tax worker looking up the records held for eminent politicians was hauled up for a grilling and cautioned.
Now, it seems, records can not be accessed by those very tax workers charged with spotting tax evaders.
