Lezhe Municipality launches computerized tax system

LEZHE, Nov 10 – With the support of USAID’s Local Governance Program in Albania (LGPA) the Lezhe Municipality launched Tuesday a new computerized municipal tax system which allows for more efficient and effective administration of tax collections and services to lead to greater tax revenue for the city and improved services for its citizens.
USAID/LGPA provided both technical and material support to the Lezhe Tax Department including over 3.6 million Lek in both IT hardware and software in another move to help improve the quality of local government.
The result of such a computerization of the Lezhe Tax Department will be:
Better local governance: Computerization of functions that are currently done manually will reduce the amount of time needed to accurately calculate tax bills, track tax payments, and develop revenue projections. Decision-makers in the municipality will also be able to now produce better and more frequent reports and analyses of tax revenues, including source (by specific tax and by type of tax payer,) total percentage collected, and outstanding liabilities.
Improved customer service: Improved local governance will allow the municipality to provide better service to the community. Using the new software, Lezha will be able to collect more tax revenues and be able to create more complete and accurate budgets of municipal services to citizens.
Reduced corruption and error: Automated financial management and tax systems will increase monitoring and evaluation, reduce manual errors, and decrease the one-on-one interactions with tax officials that is often cited as leading to corrupt practices.
USAID’s Local Governance Program in Albania (LGPA) works with its partner municipalities in Albania to foster local economic growth, improve local governance, and strengthen civic and private sector engagement in local development. In addition to Lezhe, USAID’s local governance program will be introducing computerized tax systems in Elbasan, Fier, Fushe-Kruje, Gramsh, Kor襬 Kukes, Librazhd, Pogradec and Shkoder. USAID support for computerizing the municipal tax departments is valued at 36,700,000 Lek.