The Greek Finance Ministry is mulling over reintroducing hefty one off fines for businesses failing to issue receipts to customers. The government had banned imposing independent fines for the violation of issuing tax receipts 1o months ago, which, according to tax auditors, had emboldened many businessmen who simply stopped issuing receipts altogether. The 50% fine on businesses for not including VAT rates in the price of goods was a failed policy, due too the extremely low fine for failing to do so. According to sources, the government wants to strike a balance between imposing high enough fines in order to avert businesses from violating the law and then being able to pay them, and on the other had not too high rendering the fines effectively non-collectible by tax authorities. The plan is possibly to revert to the previous fine scheme, which provided for a 250 Euro fine for every single instance for failing to issue a receipt if the culprit had simple books; a 500 Euro fine for every single instance of tax receipt issuing if the offender had double books; and a fine commensurate to 40% of the transaction if it exceeded 5,000 Euros.