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The new digital transaction levy in Greece: What businesses need to know

09.10.2024

From 1 December 2024, a new tax on digital transactions will apply in Greece. It replaces the traditional stamp duty. More than 600 types of transactions will now be exempt from stamp duty. The Ecovis experts explain the details of the new law and what businesses need to know.

Elimination of stamp duty

As of 30 November, the stamp duty burden will be abolished for many significant transactions, such as gratuitous loans, insurance transactions, capital increases for non-profit entities, statutory interest for loans, cash facilitations, and advances.

Introduction of the digital transaction levy

From 1 December, the new digital transaction levy will then replace the stamp duty on specific types of transactions. The levy will apply to real estate business leases, compensation for statutory interest and default interest (other than bank loans), and transactions between individuals who are not engaged in business activities.

In addition, the digital transaction levy will apply to payments made to individuals or members of a company’s administration, as well as to deposits or withdrawals from the funds of legal entities and organisations.

Key points of the law

Under the new law recently ratified by the Greek parliament, the digital transaction levy applies regardless of where the transaction is conducted, as long as at least one party has is tax resident or has a permanent establishment in Greece. The levy is restricted to the types of transactions specifically named in the law and does not apply to other indirect taxes.

We will answer your questions about the new digital transaction levy.

Vassilis Panagakos, Chief Accountant, ECOVIS Hellas, Athens, Greece

The assessment and payment of the levy will be carried out digitally through a new digital platform created by the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE). The declaration must be submitted by the end of the month following the transaction.

Exceptions

General exceptions include transactions where income tax withholding is required or where transactions are subject to VAT. Bond loans and home leases are also exempted from the new digital transaction levy, as they were from stamp duty.

Digital transaction levy rates

Levy rate	Transaction type
3.60%	Applied to real estate business leases, compensation for statutory and default interest, and contracts between individuals not engaged in business
2.40%	Applies when all parties are engaged in business activities, or at least one is a legal entity, e.g. an SA, LLC, or PC
1.20%	For payments to individuals or board members, as well as for deposits or withdrawals from the funds of legal entities
0.30%	For checks submitted to financial institutions

For further information please contact:

Vassilis Panagakos, Chief Accountant, ECOVIS Hellas, Athens, Greece
Email: vassilis.panagakos@ecovis.gr

VAT on digital services in Peru: Implementation postponed to 1 December 2024

07.10.2024

Providers and sellers of digital services who are not based in Peru will not have to register and pay 18% VAT to the Peruvian tax authorities until 1 December 2024 – a delay of two months. The Ecovis consultants know the details.

What are the key regulatory updates?

The main aspects of the regulations include:

• Extension for operating as withholding or collection agents: Non-resident providers currently providing services, or those beginning operations by 30 November 2024, will start collecting or withholding VAT from 1 December 2024 (instead of the originally scheduled date of 1 October 2024).
• Accounting records, ledgers, and payment receipts: Non-resident digital service providers acting as VAT withholding or collection agents will not be required to maintain accounting records, ledgers, or other statutory books, nor will they be obliged to issue payment receipts.
• Option to declare and pay in local currency or US dollars: As an exception, this option can be exercised for the first time in the declaration for December 2024.

We will help you to correctly declare VAT with the Peruvian tax authorities.

Octavio Salazar Mesias, Partner, ECOVIS Peru, Lima, Peru

For further information please contact:

Octavio Salazar Mesias, Partner, ECOVIS Peru, Lima, Peru
Email: octavio.salazar@ecovis.com.pe

Web scraping protection: How companies can protect their online content from being used by AI providers

03.10.2024

Providers and developers of (mostly general) AI tools often train their systems with data that is subject to copyright or database rights of third parties. How can they be prevented from using the authors’ online content for AI training against their will? Is web scraping permitted under European law? The Ecovis experts answer these and other questions.

European legislation

The new European AI Act emphasises (recital 108) that the AI Regulation does not affect the enforcement of copyright rules as provided for under Union law. On this basis, it could be assumed that copyright-protected works or databases – even if published online – are therefore also protected against reproduction by AI developers who “scrape” content from the internet, as long as the rightsholders have not given permission (granted a licence) to copy those works or databases as training material for AI tools. However, this is a misconception; in 2019, an important exception to this old intellectual property law principle was introduced in European legislation on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (DSM), namely that (in short) text and data mining of protected material made publicly available online is permitted for commercial purposes, unless the rightsholder has expressly reserved such rights in an appropriate manner.

Machine-readable methods (for example by including rules in a robots.txt file that scraping tools can understand) are considered appropriate in this regard. If rightsholders do not make such a reservation or do not make it in an appropriate manner, they run the risk of no longer being able to successfully take action against third parties who have lawful access to their online content and make reproductions of it for text and data mining purposes.

We can help you protect your copyrights and train your AI legally.

Lesley Broos, Lawyer, Partner, Kienhuis Legal – Member of ECOVIS International, Enschede, Netherlands

Differences among Member States

The relevant European directive has been implemented in the national legal systems of the EU Member States and is therefore not yet fully harmonised. To find out how intellectual property can be effectively protected in the various European Member States, the Ecovis consultants recommend that those affected consult a specialist. This of course also applies to developers who want to legally train their AI tools using third-party sources.

Scraping personal data in addition

While training AI-systems, personal data protection laws also need to be considered. If the online content in question also contains personal data, that can also be problematic in terms of web scraping. It is not without reason that the Dutch Data Protection Authority earlier this year informed that scraping content containing personal data is ‘almost always illegal’, as in most cases, informed consent from the ‘scraped’ data subjects would be legally required – and such consent will normally not be present.

For further information please contact:

Lesley Broos, Lawyer, Partner, Kienhuis Legal – Member of ECOVIS International, Enschede, Netherlands
Email: lesley.broos@kienhuislegal.nl