Electronic Book Keeping and Invoicing and Its Impact on Tax Fraud in Greece: The Case of Mydata

Abstract: During the last decade Greece has faced a severe fiscal crisis, inter alia due to their inefficiency to generate tax revenues. Thus, one of the structural reforms undertaken by the Greek state was the establishment of the Independent Authority of Public Revenue, that would be accountable only to the Greek parliament for the efficient collection of the public revenue. The Independent Authority for Public Revenue of Greece is going through a digital transformation during the last years. Furthermore, one of the most promising future digital initiatives undertaken by the Greek Tax Administration is the implementation of the digital accounting and tax application project in short myDATA. Subsequently, under the strategic goal of maximizing public revenue and reducing taxpayers’ non-tax compliance, the Greek Tax Authority has announced the creation of the myDATA digital platform, providing solutions of electronic bookkeeping and invoicing to Greek companies. The aim of our paper consists of providing a critical review of the current state of the myDATA project and how it will impact on tax evasion. Furthermore, we evaluate the effectiveness of tax incentives granted to Greek companies, in order to adopt myDATA electronic tools. Additionally, we conduct a comparative analysis with other countries’ e-bookkeeping and e-invoicing federal systems, as well as recommending solutions that will improve Greek companies’ compliance towards myDATA implementation requirements. Finally, we suggest future research proposals that will evaluate the effectiveness of the myDATA project on tax compliance and tax fraud combat.

Key words: e-bookkeeping, e-invoicing, tax fraud, Greece, my data

         JEL codes: H25, H26, H71, M48