TIRANA, May 9 – The American Chamber of Commerce in Albania has unveiled a series of concerns related to new taxes imposed by the Tirana Municipality and requested easier procedures in business registration and filing of requests and complaints with local government tax authorities.
In a meeting with Tirana Municipality officials, AmCham officials said there are concerns about the calculation of the cleaning and advertising taxes as well as the new education infrastructure tax.
Artan Bozo, the AmCham’s head of the tax and legal committee, said the Chamber is seeking to initiate dialogue with the municipality over the tax and business procedures.
“There is a discrepancy in the classification being made to businesses by the municipality and the classification by the tax authorities. The education infrastructure tariff is also being paid for every extra tax ID number,” said Bozo.
The advertising tax is another issue of concern with businesses complaining that there is confusion about the tax free identification signs and taxable advertising signs.
Deputy Tirana Mayor Arbjan Mazniku said the new tax system is essential to finance public works in the capital city and that the local tax burden in Tirana is lower compared to other regional capital cities.
Last March, a traders association sued the Municipality of Tirana over a sharp increase in local taxes and tariffs after several days of protests and failed negotiations with Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj, claiming the new tax hikes will take them to bankruptcy. The Tirana Administrative Court has not made a decision yet.
Small business owners staged protests last February demanding a review of the taxes on occupation of public space, buildings, advertising, education infrastructure and cleaning which increased by 2 to 10-fold starting this year. The Tirana Municipality reacted by revising only the tax on occupation of public space, but leaving in force all other taxes.
Starting this year, the Municipality of Tirana has introduced a new tax on education infrastructure in a bid to reconstruct existing pre-school and school facilities and build new ones. The ‘temporary’ tax which will be in force for seven years ranges from an annual 1,800 lek (€12.7) for Tirana households to 4,000 lek (€28.4) and 37,000 lek (€263) for businesses depending on their size.
Meanwhile, the advertising tax for ads of more than 2 m2 will be paid at 45,000 lek (€320)/m2.
In early March 2016, Albania’s Constitutional Court turned down a heavy fines law increasing fines on tax evasion by up to 50-fold as running counter to constitutional principles. The new legal changes envisaged fines of 500,000 lek (€3,529) to 10 million lek (€71,000) on informality in apparent “disproportionate” penalties to income and offences committed.
