Government ends custom fees for new cars, increases fees for used cars

TIRANA, May. 28- In a bid to encourage Albanians to purchase new cars, the government has eliminated custom fees for new cars. Finance Deputy Minister, Florion Mima, explained that it is the government’s decision to collect no customs fee for new cars, regardless of where they have been imported from. At the same time, the government has increased the customs fee for used cars by an average of $1000. The recent custom fee schedule lists custom fees for cars older than 10 years which will double the value of the car itself. While the policy will assist with environmental concerns, it increases the cost of the car so high that the average consumer will not be able to afford many used cars.
The new tax coefficients indicate an increase of $500 for cars of three to four years of age and above $1000 for trailers, minibuses and lorries, regardless of their age given their high value which the is how the fees are calculated.
The custom fee for cars imported from European Union member states was eliminated in January 2006 on the condition that the car owners received a certificate called “Eur-1,” which confirmed the cars’ origin. The Ministry of Finance, concerned about the increase in illegally obtaining this certificate or falsifying documents, launched the new measure of eliminating all new car custom fees. The customs offices of neighboring countries had also complained about the technical difficulties of granting “Eur-1” certificates. The confirmation of origin could be done only from the car concessionaries after checking their sales registers, often a time consuming process. The new measure, according to the Ministry, will reduce state revenues from custom fees by 1 billion leks.