Report: Greek tax inspectors need cops to help issue taverna fine

Assaults and attempted intimidation of Greek tax inspectors hunting for revenue after an avalanche of new tax hikes is growing with a team heckled and threatened while making a check at a taverna at the Cretan port of Iraklio.

The inspectors reported the incident to local police who escorted them on a second visit to the premises which resulted in the imposition of a fine for failing to issue receipts, Kathimerini said, but no reported arrest over the assault despite growing incidences.

The restaurant will remain closed until the penalty is paid, the amount of which was not revealed but generally has been so low it’s more profitable for establishments to pay occasional fines and keep evading taxes, for which they are not prosecuted.

That came only a few days after the head of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR), Giorgos Pitsilis, said that a law to protect Greek tax inspectors would be tightened although there was no evidence it was.

Growing threats against inspectors included one in Volos in central Greece where the owner of a pastry shop fired a shotgun in the air to scare off three tax officials who hit the shop owner with a fine of 500 euros ($589) for not issuing receipts, a common practice in Greece to dodge paying taxes.

Earlier this summer, a business owner on the island of Patmos attacked a tax inspector, punching him in the face. There were no reports of any arrests nor prosecutions for tax evasion.

“A special framework is needed to ensure their protection,” Pitsilis told Kathimerini when asked about the recent spike in attacks on tax inspectors. “Such acts (of violence) against state officials and inspection authorities cannot be addressed in the same way as attacks on regular citizens,” he said.

In a written statement earlier, Pitsilis said he had received the go-ahead from his superiors to “tighten the legal framework in order to protect, to the greatest extent possible, the authority’s inspectors against any sort of violence or threats,” but didn’t outline what it was.

“Any form of violence is intolerable,” he said, adding that armed threats were “unthinkable.”

Reports about the incident at the pastry shop near Volos went viral on social media y with details of a police raid that followed the firing of warning shots, the newspaper said.

Police officers searching the premises confiscated several guns and ammunition, for which the owner had no licenses, as well as 350,000 euros ($412,457) in cash which sources told the paper had been hidden in a washing machine. The store owner faced a magistrate later on a string of criminal charges.

Deputy Finance Minister Katerina Papanatsiou said inspections by tax officials would continue “as normal and at the same intensive rate in all parts of Greece with the aim of stamping out tax evasion” but didn’t say how the inspectors would be protectd.

Earlier this summer, a restaurateur who refused to let tax inspectors closed her business and was charged with trying to intimidate them was given only a one-year suspended sentence by a Greek court.

According to the case file, auditors had arrived at the restaurant in order to seal it and suspend its activities for 48 hours over its owner’s failure to comply with tax regulations.

They said they were verbally assaulted by the owner, who was not named, and that she tore up the order sealing shut her restaurant, defying them and tax authorities, one of a number of such incidents in which the inspectors are berated or face attempted bodily harm.

One of the auditors said he had received a threatening phone call from the suspect. The local union of tax officials issued a statement condemning the incident and demanding protection of its members from incidents.

The court also ordered the suspension of the restaurant’s operation for 12 days instead of the original two. Brief shutdowns for refusing to obey tax laws means restaurants which are caught will pay relatively small penalties, making it more attractive to keep breaking the law as they don’t face permanent closure.

It’s common on Greek islands for tax officials to be threatened, even if police are nearby. In 2012, a team of tax inspectors and investigators from the Greek financial crimes squad SDOE were assailed by 200 people at a religious festival on Crete.

According to reports, local residents took offense that the tax inspectors chose that day to conduct raids on businesses for tax code violations with a large group at a taverna instigating the assault, heckling the officers and threatening them with violence if they didn’t leave the village.