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Luxury cars the purchase of which does not match the income declared, undeclared expensive real estate and bank transfers abroad have been established by the internal control service of the Ministry of Finance during an inspection of tax officials.

The majority of them are in a hurry to submit corrective tax returns to cover their purchases or money transfers abroad, referring to donations, receipt of funds from previous years, loans and asset sales in an attempt to “justify” their tax returns.

A detailed check of the property status carried out for the first time has detected omissions which, according to a senior official of the Ministry of Finance, are raising doubts not only about tax evasion but also about illegal deals.

Yesterday the Ministry of Finance stated in an announcement that, by 30 November, the service had carried out 93 checks of property status, 44 of which of heads of a different rank, such as directors, deputy directors, heads of departments and the other 49 of inspectors.

The checks in question have been provided for in the Action Plan of the Ministry and they mainly relate to management personnel. The main purpose of these checks is "self-cleaning" the Ministry as well as the restoration of public confidence in public administration.

In a letter to the chairmen of the Hellenic Banks Association and the Association of Cooperative Banks in Greece Minister of Finance Yiannis Stournaras has requested an immediate response from the banks, in the form of data on the persons under examination, in connection with the documents of the internal control service.

In the strange tax returns the internal control service has established the following:

• A tax official filed corrective returns totalling 227,000 euro to cover the purchase of a luxury car worth 161,000 euro.

• A senior tax official did not declare the purchase of a luxury house due to which he had to submit a corrective tax return. His wife is subject to a check due to the transfer of 560,000 euro abroad.

• A female employee of the Financial Inspectorate submitted corrective returns for 8 of the 10 years for which she is being checked, indicating the income of her husband (an entrepreneur), to the amount of 600,000 euro, to “justify” the property of the family as well as the transfer of 100,000 euro abroad.

• Bank transfers worth 380,000 euro, which do not correspond to the declared income, have been associated with an employee of a large tax office in Athens.

Furthermore, the employees of the internal control service and their colleagues in tax departments will have to check the corrective returns to determine whether the data indicated in them is correct. The same senior official of the Ministry of Finance notes for "Kathimerini" newspaper that the verification of the corrective tax returns will be followed by another check by another control unit of the Ministry and that penalties, sanctions and even layoffs will follow if it detects omissions in the checks.

The selection of the persons who are to be checked is based on certain criteria such as the position held in the process of control, degree of responsibility of the position, the time during which the person has held the position, etc.

The 2013 checks involve the following staff:

• Employees who are holding or have held over the past three years the post of director, deputy director, head of department in units managed by the general secretariat for public revenue, the general secretariat for information systems and by the special secretariat of the office combating economic crimes.

• Employees who have held for at least two years the position of inspector in the regional directorates of the services mentioned above.

As of 2013 the services will carry out 240 similar checks of property status, 110 of which will involve directors, deputy directors and heads of departments and 130 inspectors.