Tax Authority: Business owners complain that it is impossible to get through the process. PA believes otherwise: "We have received thousands of claims so far"/official website, Eyal Yitzhar, Globes
Last night, at eight o'clock in the evening, with good luck and very inelegant delay, the system for submitting claims for compensation for "indirect damage" was opened by the Tax Authority. However, self-employed individuals and business owners who have tried to file lawsuits complain that the site is collapsing, navigating it is cumbersome to impossible, and those who succeed in meeting the challenge are asked to wait a week until receiving notice if they will receive compensation at all, which will delay the payment of compensation even more.
Instead of making the information accessible in a clear and simple way, the Tax Authority chose to make it difficult for business owners, who are trying to understand whether they belong to the "qualifying expenditure" track, which of the three green tracks they want to choose, or whether it is a red track, and there is also a track for farmers, in short, to lose their arms and legs.
Tzameret Avivi, Lehav's vice president, is flooded, she says, with desperate requests from businesses and their representatives, accountants and tax consultants, who have no idea how to deal with the Hungarian cube set before them by the Tax Authority. "In discussions held in the Finance Committee, the Tax Authority assured us that filing would be simple and easy," says Avivi, "but people don't understand how to submit and their representatives are confused.
"There are some unclear routes, and businesses don't know which one they belong to. They also promised that an authorized dealer would have the amount of compensation, according to the calculation of the VAT report submitted, but this does not happen either. Licensed dealers who succeed in filling out the application are notified that their eligibility will be answered within 7 days. Not only is the site very cumbersome, it's also constantly crashing.
Tzameret Avivi, Vice President of Lehav: "It feels like goats have been brought in, that they put their feet on purpose" / PR
The goat is already inside
"The feeling is as if goats were brought in, who put their feet on purpose, instead of giving the obvious feeling that there is someone who cares and works for us, and to direct the presenters in a simple way, an exempt dealer, please enter here, a turnover of NIS 300,000 here, business owners who are not familiar with numbers, stand at a loss in front of the system and have to pay hundreds of shekels to the accountants for this work, because it is complicated and takes time."
Avivi does not suffice with pointing out the system's flaws and allegedly hints at deliberate failures: "This wickedness, which arises from the way the site was built, corresponds with the insinuation by Amir Dahan, the director of the compensation nest, during committee discussions that we, the independents, are fraudsters at the base. This, unfortunately, is the perception there, instead of treating us as the economy's growth engine.
Because of the outrageous way the system was set up, businesses that have been shut down for almost two months will have to wait a few more weeks for money from the state to enter their account, which is unacceptable."
The Tax Authority said in response: "The website operates and has received thousands of claims so far. Naturally, there is a load of applicants and therefore sometimes there is difficulty in entering it. In relation to the allegations of non-receipt of the stipulated compensation amount, details must be provided so that we can examine the claims."
- More on the subject:
- Self-employed
- Small Business
- HB 433
- Tax Authority
- Compensation
- War in the South
