For the second year in a row, businesses and residents of Tirana will pay more for the education tax

2024-12-18 07:18:00, Aktualitet CNA

For the second year in a row, businesses and residents of Tirana will pay more

The temporary education infrastructure tax has the last year of application in 2025.

The municipality of Tirana expects to collect income from this tax for 2025 in the amount of 805 million lek or about 8.6 million euros. The receipts for the next year are estimated to be about 11% more than the average of the revenues collected in the last 7 years, the period 2018-2024.

The data is made public in relation to the draft budget of the year 2025 of the Municipality of Tirana.

In the relation, it is predicted that the receipts for the education infrastructure tax will increase for the category of family members, in the expected realism of 2024, but also next year, due to the increase in the reference prices, on which this tax is calculated.

"The temporary education infrastructure tax has a satisfactory feasibility since its entry into force in 2016, both for the business category and for the family category. At the beginning of 2023, the receipts from this tax were reduced by the approval of this tax for a new period of 3 years and the limitation of its value to the extent of 35% of the building tax liability for the same subject.

The expected level of realization for the year 2024 will be above the estimated value for the subjects

"Family" taking into account the entry into force of the new VKM on 28.07.2023 and the application of reference price changes in August 2023 invoices for the building tax and, respectively, for the temporary tax for the educational infrastructure.

The tax agent UKT-sha in October 2024 results with a number of 190,834 invoiced subscribers and 47,336 subscribers exempted from paying this tax", the report states.

An increase in receipts for the category of family members is also expected in 2025, compared to the expected realism of 2024.

"The forecast for the period 2025-2027, more precisely for the year 2025 will be in the following values, predicting an increase for the category "Family" and for commercial entities in the values ??of the expected realization for the year 2024, this after the forecast for the year 2024 we predicted the values ??taking as a reference the 35% of the predictions for the building tax, while for business entities the application of this the tax was made mainly with the values ??of the annex since the tax values ??of the building, more precisely (35%) are much higher than the values ??of the annex", it is stated in the relation of the draft budget 2025.

The increase in the obligation for both the category of families and businesses has been influenced by the increase in the reference prices of apartments according to the decision published in the Official Gazette at the end of July 2023. In relation to the 2024 draft budget, the municipality of Tirana explained that the value of the temporary tax of the educational infrastructure is in the amount of 35% of the building tax liability for the same subject as a family or commercial subject.

For family members, the increase in the obligation for the education infrastructure tax began to be applied in August 2023, when the increased obligation for the building tax began after the increase in reference prices. With the July decision, the reference prices for the 32 cadastral areas of Tirana increased from 4 to 76% compared to the levels of the 2018 decision.

The temporary tax for the educational infrastructure in Tirana entered into force in 2016, both for the business category and for the family category. Initially, it was expected that this tax would be implemented until 2022, but then the Municipality of Tirana postponed its implementation for another 3 years until 2025.

For commercial entities, the obligation of this tax is collected by the General Directorate of Local Taxes and Tariffs. While the obligation from the family category is collected by the tax agent selected for this purpose, "Tirana Water and Sewerage" through drinking water bills. For the "Family members" category, the obligation is paid in 12 equal installments, for each month respectively, and its value is 35% of the building tax obligation.

In total, from 2018 to 2025, the Municipality of Tirana expects to collect a total of around 60 million euros in revenue from this tax./ Monitor Magazine