A simple bank transfer between a parent and child or the movement of funds from a shared family account can carry greater tax implications than many taxpayers realize.
Greece’s Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) has intensified audits of parental cash gifts, donations and transfers made through joint bank accounts, seeking cases in which what appears to be an ordinary transaction may conceal an informal gift.
Tax authorities are examining who deposited the money, who managed it and who ultimately benefited from it.
More than 2,000 cases deemed noncompliant have already resulted in taxes being assessed, while 1,080 parental-gift and donation cases have been included in the authority’s audit program.
A central issue involves joint bank accounts, which are widely used by families to manage finances. Tax authorities stress that being a co-holder of an account does not automatically make a person the owner of all funds held in it.
