Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis said in Parliament on Tuesday, during the debate on the government’s policy statements that there would be a huge clampdown on tax evasion with the German model of tax inspections that include raids into offices.

Plans:

1. Incentives to abolish the use of cash transactions before the laxening of capital controls in Greece. Measures will include –
(a) tax bonus points and special lotteries with receipts of those who pay using cash cards;
(b) incentive for businesses through the creation of a special deposit account offering added advantages for transactions made using cards.

2. Electronic tax statements as well as online transfers of documents as stipulated in the memorandum (bailout) from 2013 but that has never been applied. This would save the Ministry of Finance around 11.5 bln euros.

3. Changes to tax investigations by the Tax Office so that open cases can be speedily concluded. Alexiadis states that investigations have been initiated in 481 cases out of a total 2,062 on the Lagarde list, and only 136 have been completed due to the small number of investigators on the case.