Inspections carried out by Greece’s Financial Crime Squad in tourist areas has found that resorts aren’t handing out receipts as required and those in Evia are ducking 100 percent of their tax obligations.
That comes as the Value Added Tax (VAT) for restaurants and in the food sector are set to be reduced from 23 to 13 percent on Aug. 1 with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warning that if the savings aren’t passed on to customers that it will go back up again.
The country’s international lenders have been pressing the government to go after tax cheats but despite occasional well-publicized arrests, not a single major evader has been prosecuted and it takes up to 10 years to prosecute them.
The spot checks were carried out early in July of 838 catering enterprises, bars, nightclubs, rented luxury houses and flea markets. The controls revealed that 409 businesses were offenders and that there were 2,020 violations. There was no report on whether anyone was fined or prosecuted.
In another inspection carried out by SDOE and the police, all the itinerant trade businesses in the region Naousa in Paros were checked. They found all nine businesses were ignoring tax laws and were selling stolen and counterfeit goods.
The following table shows the percentage of delinquency by region:
| Evia | 100% |
| Fokida | 80% |
| Santorini/Thira | 79,31% |
| Paros | 75,76% |
| Lakonia | 71,27% |
| Ios | 66,67% |
| Attica | 60% |
| Crete | 56,83% |
| Loutraki – Xylokastro Beach | 52,85% |
| Porto Cheli, Ermioni | 50% |
| Corfu | 46% |
| Rhodes | 44% |
| Mykonos | 43,75% |
| Syros | 42,11% |
| Chalkidiki | 40% |
| Pieria | 33% |
| Tinos | 26,67% |
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