DAC6 - Diractive 2018/822/ΕU

Mandatory Disclosure and Exchange of Cross-Border Tax Arrangements - Integration in Greece with Law 4174/2020

       I. General comments and application

  • The Economic and Financial Affairs Council approved on 25 May 2018 the amendment of Directive 2011/16 / EU with the publication of 2018/822 / EU on the mandatory disclosure and exchange of information regarding cross-border tax arrangements (referred to as DAC6).
  • On July 7 2020, the Greek Government proceeded to draft legislation for the implementation of the mentioned directive, with the voting of L.4714/2020, according to which taxpayers and intermediaries are obliged to report the information from 1 July 2020. The purpose of this Directive is to strengthen tax transparency and the suspension of aggressive tax planning practices. Business intermediaries (accountants, lawyers, tax advisers) are required to provide to tax authorities information on any cross-border transaction with either more than one Member State or one Member State and a third country, that has specific hallmarks.

    II. Fines for late submission or non-submission or inaccurate / incomplete report by country

  • Intermediaries and taxpayers are expected to be penalized for omissions up to the maximum amount of 100,000 euro per tax audit. However, the Law 4714/2020 exempts the intermediaries from reporting whether the obligation to report constitutes a breach of their legal professional privilege (LPP). The dismissed intermediaries are obliged to inform other intermediaries without delay. In case there are no other intermediaries, they should inform the taxpayers without delay.

 III. Deadlines

  • Intermediaries are obliged to submit to the competent authorities information on declarable cross-border arrangements within a period of thirty (30) days the calculation of which starts from any of the following dates, whichever occurs first:

(a) the next day from the day on which the declared cross-border arrangement becomes available or ready for implementation

b) the day of completion of the first stage of the application of the declarable regulation.

  • For the mentioned cross-border arrangements that are available for implementation or where the first stage in these arrangements takes place between 1 July 2020 and 31 December 2020, the 30-day deadline for the submission of information starts from 1 January 2021.
  • Regarding information for which the first stage was completed between June 25, 2018 and June 30, 2020, the deadline is set for February 28, 2021.
  • In case of application of general purpose regulations, the intermediary is obliged to submit a periodic report quarterly, which provides information on new declarable information, which became available in the period between the submission of the last report. The first periodic report is submitted from the intermediary by 30 April 2021.
  • The first exchange of information on cross-border arrangements between Greece and other Member States will take place by 30 April 2021.