In order to avoid paying costly interest, Head of the ETCB’s Tax Audit Unit, Airi Lepassar recommends that companies regularly check their ratings in the e-services environment e-MTA, where risks and deficiencies related to tax calculation are displayed as a preventive measure.
“An incorrectly calculated amount of tax entails an obligation to pay interest, which in turn is subject to income tax. Therefore, any economically prudent economic operator can keep their costs under control by regularly monitoring tax behaviour ratings that give direct feedback on shortcomings in tax matters and guidelines for their correction,” said Lepassar.
The service of Ratings has been developed in such a way that it compares the data of various state registers and companies with a company’s tax return and shows the client both the potential level of risk and the reason why the company may capture the attention of a tax auditor.
“For example, if a company has acquired immovable property and, in the course of data exchange with the land register, it becomes evident that its intended use is a dwelling/residential land, this may lead to different tax risks in our eyes. A frequent mistake is the use of a dwelling by board members of a company and the failure to pay taxes on the fringe benefit. This year, additional tax liabilities related to immovable property have been identified in the amount of nearly two million euros already,” Lepassar added.
According to Lepassar, the Ratings service is a company’s litmus test, which warns in advance if or when a call from the ETCB can be expected.
“The service is designed so that companies can check what information the ETCB has about them and keep their tax affairs in order, as well as avoid accumulation of tax problems and interest. It is also possible to subscribe to automatic notifications of changes in the ratings. If risks are ignored and amounts increase, it is inevitable that at some point we must start a tax control and my experience has shown that the tax liability imposed as a result of this is usually even greater, precisely because of the long-term accumulation of liabilities,” said the Head of the Tax Audit Unit based on her long-term experience.
