Access to justice in taxation cases
After the approval of a plethora of tax laws, in order to accelerate the procedure of collecting every pending tax penalty in general, an administrative procedure has been introduced and therefore it's strict implementation is nowadays the only means of access to the so called administrative tax trial.
I will briefly describe this administrative procedure.
According to article 63 of law 3174/2013 a specific administrative procedure is introduced – compalsory recaurse. In paragraph 1 of the aforementioned article it is defined that the person who is liable for the payment of the tax, in case he defies any act has issued against him through the tax administration or in case of silent refusal he is obligated to submit compalsory recaurse asking for the re examination of the act in terms of the administrative procedure through the Internal Reexamination Authority of the Tax Administration.
The apply is submitted to the tax authority that published the act or omitted its publication and has to refer to reasons and documents on to which the tax payer bases the apply. The apply has to be submitted within a 30 day period from the acts date of notification or omission.
I should also state that this by virtue of the aforementioned provision, delayis not suspended between the 1st and the 31st of August.
It is pointed out that the appeal is necessary to include the applicants data for communication (address, e mail.) and also the attorneys data. The applicant alongside with this appeal submitts to Tax Authority an electronic file that includes:
The submitted compalsory recourse
The petition
The documentation invoked, accompanied by a statutory declaration in which the exact content of the electronic folder must be presented in full detail.
Subsequently, Tax Administration forwards the applicant' s application, within seven days, along with the attached documents and its legal reasoning report to the Internal Re examination Authority of Tax Administration in order for the latter to rule.
After the appeal, the payment of 50% of the tax under scruting is suspeded in condition that the other 50% has already been paid.
The tax payer has the right to simultaneously submit a petition for the suspension of the payment.
The Internal Reexamination Authority is able to postpone the payment until it issues a final decision only on the grounds that the payment could cause an irreversible damage to the tax payer and it is valid until the final issue of the decision.
The Tax Cases Settlement Directory in order to evaluate irreversible damage is taking the following facts into account.
-for a person: global income from every source for the two previous years needs to be declared and also the property and possessions of husband or wife and of minor children, by the time the appeal was submitted.
-for a legal entity: global income from every source for the previous two years needs to be declared and also the property of legal entities the applicant is part of.
The ruling on the petition is issued within 30 days from the submission of the application to the Tax Authority, otherwise it is considered that the request is rejected. If no decision is issued within 30 days from the submission of the application, then the application is also considered as rejected. Postponing of the payment does not exempt the tax payer from the obligation to pay the interest, due to delayed tax payment.
