The Parliamentary Committee on Energy, Trade, Industry and Tourism met today, Tuesday, 5 April 2022, and discussed the following issues:
1. The Companies (Amendment) (No. 3) Act, 2022.
(Proposed legislation by Mr. Ilias Myrrianthous on behalf of the Social Democrats' Movement, Marios Mavridis on behalf of the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Rally, Alekos Tryfonidis and Michalis Yakoomis on behalf of the Democratic Party)
(File No. 23.02.063.019-2022)
2. The Uniform and Heterogeneous Cooperatives and Trade Names (Amendment) Act, 2022
(Bill proposed by Mr. Ilias Myrrianthous on behalf of the Social Democrats' Movement, Marios Mavridis on behalf of the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Rally, Alekos Tryfonidis and Michalis Yakoomis on behalf of the Democratic Party)
(File No. 23.02.063.021-2022)
3. The Receipt and Collection of Taxes (Amendment) Law of 2022
(Bill proposed by Mr. Ilias Myrrianthous on behalf of the Social Democrats' Movement, Marios Mavridis on behalf of the Parliamentary Group of the Democratic Rally, Alekos Tryfonidis and Michalis Yakoomis on behalf of the Democratic Party)
(File No. 23.02.063.022-2022)
4. The Companies (Amendment) (No. 4) Law of 2022
(Bill proposed by Mr. Kyriakos Hatzigiannis, Mr. Onoufrios Koullas and Mr. Nikos Figas on behalf of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Rally and Ms. Christiana Erotokritou on behalf of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Party)
(File No. 23.02.063.024-2022)
The committee continued, in the presence of representatives of the competent government departments, as well as the stakeholders, the discussion of the above mentioned law proposals.
The purpose of the first law proposal is to amend the Companies Law in order to simplify the procedure of attestation (audit) of the financial statements of companies whose net turnover and total balance sheet do not exceed seven hundred thousand euros (€700.000) and one million euros (€1,000,000), respectively, through the application of an alternative certification procedure, which must be carried out by a statutory auditor or a statutory audit firm.
The purpose of the second and third proposed laws is to amend the Law on Uniform and Heterogeneous Cooperatives and Trade Names and the Law on Confirmation and Collection of Taxes, respectively, in order to harmonize their provisions with the proposed amendment to the Law on Companies referred to above.
The purpose of the fourth proposed law is to amend the Companies Act in order to simplify the procedure for certifying (auditing) the financial statements of companies whose net turnover does not exceed two hundred thousand euros (€200.000) through the application of an alternative attestation procedure, which must be carried out by a statutory auditor or statutory audit firm.
The proposed regulations are considered necessary in order to reduce the administrative burden on micro-entities and to address in practice the issue of the actual costs incurred by companies and audit firms, due to the work currently carried out as opposed to the actual benefit to both of them.
In the context of the debate, the Committee discussed
