Alban Zusi from the association of Food Industrialists said on tonight’s ‘Now’ with Erla Mehilli that the Government hasn’t consulted a single group of interest, in regards to the latest changes being made to our 2022 fiscal package that will include a rise in the VAT tax for farmers and producers.
According to Zusi, this would end up being a substantial violation of our economy, that won’t only affect a specific taxable category, but society as a whole, which brings us to a point where consulting the experts is of absolute necessity.
“The VAT tax for farmers at 6% – people think that the agricultural sector is the only one that will be affected, but agriculture is connected to the food industry that is connected to other sectors, that ultimately ends up reaching 40-45% of our national GDP. Meddling with the system in such a way, without any form of public consultation takes massive courage,” – argued Zusi.
Lastly, he warned that ‘the government doesn’t seem to have any vision at all’ and that ‘we could be looking at a 9-12% rise in prices, that would be a direct result of this new tax on farmers and producers”.
‘The Government is lashing out on domestic producers through these changes to the fiscal package’.
General Secretary of the Union of Albanian Producers, Arben Shkodra gave his take on the matter, saying that ‘this fiscal package is a direct offensive attack against local production”.
In addition, Shkodra argued that these new fiscal changes will directly harm local businesses as well as trigger even more informality.
All this, according to Shkodra is being done so that the government can be able to amass an additional €60-70 million euros in accumulated taxes for the State Budget.
“It would have been better if they had just taken out a loan rather than completely messing up with the country’s business climate. There will be price hikes and abuse, and informality will also be on the rise after such measures get introduced. A factory that gets affected by the added 6 Lek, that used up about 10 thousand liters a day, will now have to pay an additional €177 thousand euros more in taxes, each year!” said Shkodra.
According to the General Secretary, this will also force the private sector to stop hiring and not even think about rising salaries.
The gravest damages, however, said Shkodra, will play out in terms of an elevated sense of competition amongst locally-grown or locally-produced products and imports.
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