Self-employed: Countdown to income presumption corrections

The closing of the curtain on tax declarations natural persons opened the way for corrections to the depreciated income concerning free people professionals and the self-employed. The first scenarios for changes to criteria determining the minimum presumptive income of freelancers, will be on the table of the economic staff towards the end of August.

Without overturning the main body of the presumptive system for calculating the minimum taxable income of 735,000 freelancers and self-employed people, the interventions that will be examined concern the turnover criterion on the basis of which the presumptive income is increased, but also the criterion of payroll costs which, especially in the cases of individual business employing staff with many years of employment,significantly increases the imputed income.

It is also likely that family income will be taken into account, that there will be improvements to the process of challenging the minimum presumptive income and that there will be a “haircut” of the burden caused by the adjustment of the minimum wage, which is the basis for calculating the minimum presumptive income. The increase in the minimum wage from 780 to 830 euros raises the minimum presumptive taxable income from 10,920 euros in 2023 to 11,620 euros in 2024.

According to the Deputy Minister of Finance, Christos Dimas, the changes will be legislated before the end of the year so that there will be sufficient time for AADE to adjust its systems to the new data, for the submission of next year’s tax returns year. The Ministry of Finance’s plan foresees the beginning of the period for submitting tax returns from March 1, 2025, with a “locked” schedule without extensions until June 30 of each year.

The tax on the clearing houses breaks the counters

With the help of changes in the way freelancers are taxed in this year’s tax declarations, income taxes reach 4.6 billion euros from 3.8 billion euros last year. From the liquidation of 6,545,434 declarations that have been submitted, it appears that 35% of the declarations are in debt with taxpayers they pay additional tax on their 2023 incomes which reaches 2,000 euros on average.

Last year 47% of freelancers paid tax up to 1,000 euros and 27% from 1,000-3,000 euros and this year, according to the calculations of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance 1,000 euros will be paid by 17% and 54% will pay between 1,000-3,000 euros. These calculations were done on paper before the submission of the tax returns and now an account will be taken, based on real data.