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Reconstruction/Report: Investigate where the tax-exempt raw material went

2024-03-18 07:33:49, Aktualitet CNA

The reconstruction program that began after the devastating earthquake of November 2019 was accompanied by a series of additional government measures aimed at speeding it up and reducing costs. Such were the exemption from infrastructure tax or VAT for raw materials.

A report of the High State Control raises as a concern the supervision that has been done to the measure for tax relief of raw materials used under this program and they are really oriented where they should be. The report specifically made this finding after an audit at the General Directorate of Customs, referring to the Lezha branch as a case.

"From the audit of iron import practices for the Lezhë Customs Branch, regarding the entities that have benefited from the exemption from value added tax within the framework of the reconstruction, we find that SVQ (Sector of Central Value) and SKAO (Sector of Operative A posteriori Control ) did not act according to point II/3 of Instruction no. 5, dated 26.01.2018 of the DPD, not rechanneling these practices to other channels with a higher level of risk since they have a high risk for their specificity.

Many structures participate in their processing, where the SVQ and SKAO have controlled only a part of the practices and the Tariff and Origin Directorate, the Tariff Sector and other structures of the Lezhë customs branch have also participated in their processing. Also, the DTO has not supervised these operations, according to point 4, article 68, of the DPD Regulation, among the functional tasks of the Tariff and Origin Directorate is the administration of privileged operations and exemptions from VAT," the report states.

In this context, the auditors bring to attention that the beneficiary entities have not been supervised by the customs authorities for the compliance of the activity with the obligations arising from the decision, i.e. the non-use of iron for other purposes, not acting according to point 5 of article 28 of the Customs Code.

"From the audit, it is established that there was an action in violation of the Cooperation Agreement between the DPD with no. 14355 prot., dated 19.06.2018 and the DPT with no. 12819 prot., dated 19.06.2018, with the aim of strengthening supervision and control on the activity of taxpayers/economic operators, specifically the disallowance of use for other purposes" the report states.

Given this panorama, the KLSH has requested that two institutions, such as Customs and Taxes, conduct investigations to verify whether the beneficiaries of these exceptions have directed it to the reconstruction program.

"DPD and DPT in implementation of the Cooperation Agreement between them, with the aim of strengthening the supervision and control over the activity of taxpayers/economic operators, take measures for the approval of joint programs, carry out joint investigations and controls in connection with the verification of the use of iron for construction according to the destination determined for the above-mentioned economic operators" the report states.

The reconstruction started in 2020 and continues even today in the Municipality of Tirana and Durrës, while it has been finalized in some other municipalities. Until the end of last year, the actual expenses for this program were 730 million euros./ Monitor.al