TIRANA, Sept. 26 – Finance Minister Shkelqim Cani has held a press conference in an effort to convince small businesses that the government’s recent campaign against informality does not aim to attack or damage the operations of honest businesses.
The government started in August and is still continuing a campaign against informality in business activities, pushing thousands of small businesses to get registered and to start using electronic cash machines that issue receipts.
About half of the country’s small businesses were operating illegally before, the government estimates.
Many of them complain that new punitive government measures are making them bankrupt. A few of them have also closed down their small shops, likely waiting for a relaxation of the government controls.
But most of them have registered and bought the cash machines.
Cani said that 19,000 new businesses registered in less than two months and their daily turnout has seen a significant increase, thus bringing more money to the government coffers in taxes.
He also said that more than 60,000 people have been added to the social insurance list, not only bringing more money to the government but also securing a pension for them.
The authorities also appealed to the small businesses to declare all goods they have had in the shops until the end of the year and pay delayed taxes, or they will be confiscated after the deadline.
The World Bank has welcomed the recent operation against the informal economy calling it a necessary move to reduce fiscal evasion.
Tahseen Sayed, the country manager of the World Bank office in Tirana, has also warned that the Albanian authorities should be careful on the compaign’s social impact and poverty.
“As to the poor stratum of society, it needs to be supported by the government. The role of social assistance is very important for it is closely linked with the reform’s impact. Each government has to do this in order to enable social assistance,” Sayed said.
Critics and the political opposition have said the government’s campaign has hit small survival and self-employment businesses hardest, forcing many of them to give up their jobs, thus increasing unemployment and poverty.
