The Supreme Court rejects the possibility of modifying negative tax bases from prescribed financial years

In its judgment 1244/2025 of 7 October 2025, the Supreme Court established the doctrine that income or expenses not accounted for in one financial year, but accounted for in a subsequent one, … cannot alter the tax base of past years in which the tax liability was unassailable due to the statute of limitations.

In the case analysed by the judgment, the Tax Authorities disallowed the deductibility of an expense recorded in 2012 on the grounds that it had accrued, in part, in financial years 2004 to 2006, which were already time-barred. The taxpayer claimed that, by virtue of the principle of full regularisation and in view of the Tax Authorities’ power to check the negative tax bases of the previous 10 years, greater negative tax bases should be recognised in these prescribed years.

The High Court points out, based on the principles of accounting entry and temporary allocation, as well as its doctrine on the restatement of annual accounts, that the power to verify negative tax bases for the previous ten years does not imply that the Tax Authorities can alter the tax debt for prescribed years by allocating a higher expense to those years.

It should be noted that this criterion, which prevents the alteration of tax bases for prescribed years, is different from and compatible with that established by the Supreme Court in its judgment of 22 March 2024, according to which the deduction of an expense from a prescribed year recorded in a year subsequent to the year in which it accrued is appropriate if this does not result in lower taxation.