TIRANA, May 20 – In a bid to reduce smuggling and informality, the Albanian government has taken some tight measures in the oil and tobacco market following a decline in imports in early 2015 apparently fuelled by higher taxes.
The Albanian government has ordered a nationwide campaign to inspect fuel stations over alleged abuses with quality and quantity of oil, closing down dozens of retail stations.
A government decision has also banned wholesale and retail oil companies to trade fuel under a previous three-day deadline in case of problems with cash registers.
“This three-day provision has often been misused and abused by wholesale traders who traded oil for three days without issuing receipts, claiming that their cash registers had broken down. The cash registers were often intentionally made unavailable by companies or authorized technicians for untaxed sales in 72 hours,” says the Finance Ministry.
To prevent smuggling of fuel from neighbouring countries where fuel prices are lower due to lower taxes, the Finance Ministry has also limited the amount of tax-free fuel motor vehicles can carry when entering Albania to 200 litres. Local media have often reported cases of smuggling of fuel from Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro where fuel prices are considerably lower.
To handle a decline in tobacco imports, the Finance Ministry has taken an even more extreme measure by requiring excise guarantees for imports of rolling paper, filter tips and cigarette tubes which are widely used in domestically produced tobacco, most of which is traded informally.
Under a measure proposed by the Finance Ministry, government is expected to require to authorized importers and producers a bank guarantee of 110 lek (€0.77) for 20 pieces of cigarette tubes, the same to the excise tax on a 20-cigarette pack, which will be unfreeze only after providing the sales documentation.
The measure is meant to curb the widespread sale of untaxed domestically produced tobacco whose excise tax has been raised to 4,400 lek/kg (€30) but is often sold at 2,000 to 3,000 lek/kg (€14 to €21) in the black market.
A smoker who has recently shifted to hand-rolled tobacco due to unaffordable prices, jokingly said smokers will even use newspapers as rolling paper if the measure is enforced.
