Taxisnet – Greece’s online tax and customs service network – had a record number of visits on Wednesday with 270,000 Greek taxpayers visiting the site in just one day. Taxpayers started entering the site after the  Greek Finance ministry didn’t announce its expected extension to the June 30 deadline for E1 tax returns. Fearful they wouldn’t make the deadline, 170,000 taxpayers submitted their tax return and another 100,000 filed their salary returns.

At least 2.3 million taxpayers have yet to submit their tax returns – from a total of 5.8 million – and this is something of concern to the Finance Ministry.

Finance Ministry sources believe that there are two main reasons as to why citizens aren’t rushing to submit their returns even though the deadline is ending in 5 days: (a) psychological reasons as taxpayers were delaying returns expecting that the government would announce an extension of the deadline and also because they were reluctant to face their tax clearance amounts, and (b) financial reasons as a number of people aren’t in a position to pay the 40-50 euros required for an accountant to do their tax returns.

The Financial Ministry is expected to announce:

* an extension of E1 tax returns from June 30 to mid-July.

* a deadline for submissions for the amendment of E1 declarations (without corrections for fines).

* modifications to the joint property tax (ENFIA) that will give the opportunity for taxpayers to correct mistakes without fines being made

* extensions to asset declarations until mid-October