TIRANA, June 10 – Former politicians, judges and prosecutors who have not been working in their position for at least three years will no longer be excluded from the capital amnesty. The final version of the draft law stipulates that these officials may have their wealth legalized, without being oblige to declare its sources.
Although Prime Minister Edi Rama had initially declared that no high-level official would benefit from the amnesty, the situation has shifted following the finalization of the draft law by the Ministry of Finance.
The Albanian Parliament is expected to vote on the capital amnesty draft law in the upcoming weeks. The draft law was expected to be voted on in May, however it was later postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The amnesty will last up to 1 year, divided into three time periods of four months.
During the first four months, the obligation to deposit money is foreseen to be 5 percent of the total, during the second period it may be 7 percent and during the third, it may be 10 percent. However the numbers will be discussed further with stakeholders and parliamentary committees.
With this initiative, Albanian passport holders can legalize undeclared property received or owned and related tax liabilities associated with formation/acquisition and usage of such property.
Capital amnesty is a procedure whereby the state recognizes the rights to property (including money, real estate and certain other assets) withdrawn from the lawful economic turnover with the purpose of concealment of income and/or property where the right to the property was not duly formalized/documented or property that was formalized/documented to an “improper person”.
The legalization of the Albanians’ wealth is indeed a policy implemented by the Democratic Party (DP) government led by Sali Berisha in 2011. But then, as the opposition leader, Rama strongly opposed it.
Berisha invited Rama to vote on the capital amnesty, but he refused.
DP’s government couldn’t pass the law in the parliament, but Berisha authorized the Ministry of Finance to go on with the amnesty.
Under the 2011’s directive, all individuals in the country and abroad, large and small businesses, had the possibility to declare their cash in the banks and do the same with their undeclared real estate. The cash would be handed over to the bank after completing a form and paying 3 percent of the amount, as a tax. Once the money was deposited in the banks they could freely be transferred abroad.
