Public Revenue Authority Launches More Probes into Greek Hotels

In efforts to curb tax evasion at popular tourist destinations, Greece’s Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) said it was reinforcing inspections at hotel businesses across the country.

AADE officials presented an action plan in parliament this week outlining the priorities for 2017. These include ensuring compliance of services activities within the tourism sector; monitoring and assessing tax audit results for hotel enterprises found to be tax evading; developing a risk assessment study to target and conducting audits on businesses found to have violated tax laws in the summer and conducting a number of on-the-spot checks tracking violations.

AADE officials said they were also working with relevant bodies to further identify tax violation incidents by geographical area.

Tax inspectors have – via on-site inspections at hotel units across Greece – been cross-checking  whether entrepreneurs in the hospitality sector are declaring income earned during the high tourism season in summer and paying corresponding VAT. Audits are conducted based on gross revenue, years of operation, destination popularity as well as history of previous tax offenses.