May 2023

Decision of the single-member first instance criminal court of Athens on the non-inclusion of fines of 3.500.000 euros in the limit of the merit for the offence of non-payment of debts to the State

A decision was published by the single-member first instance criminal court of Athens in favour of our client, in which the latter was acquitted of the offence of non-payment of debts to the state amounting to approximately 3.500.000€. In particular, the Court accepted that following the introduction of article 469 of the Penal Code (effective from 1.7. 2019) from the debt table determining the debts of the offence of non-payment, the amounts derived from the tax evasion offences (as standardised in Article 66 of the Code of Tax Procedure) and the administrative fines associated with them (as it is, for example, fines imposed for the issue of false or fictitious tax documents), without regard to the amount of the amount allegedly due (i.e. if it exceeds 50. 000 for Value Added Tax related fines or over €100,000 for those related to Income Tax). In the case in question, most of the entries in the debt table related to fines imposed following the issuance of allegedly false - tax documents (they even bore the description: Fines of the C.B.S., i.e. a fine of the Code of Books and Records) and, following the deduction of the amounts concerned, the act became unenforceable, as the alleged debts fell below the criminal threshold of €100,000 for the offence of non-payment of debts.