TIRANA, March 3 – On Tuesday’s meeting of the American Chamber representatives with Director General of the Albanian Tax Administration, Delina Ibrahimaj, AmCham President Enio Jaço said that the time has come to create regional tax policies that are attractive and promising to foreign investors as well. “We are ready to cooperate on tax laws,” said Jaço, who has previously stressed that Albania is not attracting enough foreign investors as the rest of the region is.
According to Jaço, the investment climate is an important issue to be addressed. “The priority for us is to attract foreign investments,” he said, adding that Albania has no competitive foreign investment policies.
Another issue pointed out by the AmCham President involved the frequent changes made to tax policies during the last eight years. “The damages that are created in businesses and the business climate have also been disclosed by Minister Denaj,” he said.
In this line, Alketa Uruçi, Chairwoman of the Tax Committee at AmCham, said there was a change in the income tax law which has brought evasion, especially for those remaining in the 8 million threshold. This drives the taxpayer to conceal their income, rather than voluntarily declarate it and therefore the burden is on the regular taxpayer. “We call on Finance to prepare the tax reform law. Taxpayers, who are employees, bear the greatest burden. We have submitted to the Finance the proposal to improve the Tax Procedures Guidelines. They need to be clearer so that there is no room for tax evasion,” she said.
Director General of the Albanian Tax Administration, Delina Ibrahimaj, said that the Ministry finds it very important to cooperate with businesses, “as it helps them to improve their work. “The Tax Strategy aims to reduce informality, avoid evasion and increase voluntary disclosure [of their income]. We are developing a five-year mid-term strategy in collaboration with [the Ministry of] Finance and this requires consultation with businesses, ” she said.
