Greece Implements CTCs for Retailers with Online Cash Registers

The upcoming tax reform in Greece is expected to manifest itself in three continuous transaction control (CTC) initiatives.

1. The myDATA e-books initiative, which entails the real-time reporting of transaction and accounting data to the myDATA platform which will in turn populate a set of online ledgers maintained on the government portal;
2. Invoice clearance, which is clearly beneficial for the Greek Tax Authority although no roll-out date has been published yet; and
3. Online cash registers which will transmit sales data to the tax authority in real-time.

Earlier this month, new technical specifications were published for the online connection of cash registers with the government portal. From June 2020, all cash registers currently used in Greece must be updated to meet the new technical specifications (available in Greek) to be able to connect and transmit their transaction data to the government portal.

The technical specifications regulate two aspects:

1. The frequency of data transmission. The data will be reported in real-time and up to once per day in batch.
2. A QR code must be included in the receipts issued. Through a URL in the QR code, whose format and content are defined in the technical documentation, the tax authority can validate the receipts issued. The actual control process hasn’t been defined yet, but it’s understood that based on this QR code the tax authority will be able to compare the retail data from the cash register to the data registered on the myDATA platform.

These specifications are complementary to those published in late 2018, which mainly regulated the security and certification requirements of the new generation cash registers. This latest development is further proof that the Greek government is committed to moving forward with the CTC plans it initially outlined two years ago.