Environmental problems increase, but the collection of environmental taxes worsens

2024-04-30 08:50:00, Ekonomi CNA

Environmental problems increase, but the collection of environmental taxes

Illustrative photo

Environmental problems are increasing all over the world, but even in Albania, the country's capacity to collect environmental taxes is declining.

INSTAT data show that environmental tax revenues in relation to GDP were 2.59% in 2022 from 3.1% of GDP in 2021. In 2022, environmental tax revenues reached the value of about 55.5 billion ALL, suffering a decrease of 4.53%, compared to 2021.

From the structure of environmental tax revenues for 2022, energy taxes account for the largest share of revenues with 82.45%, followed by transport taxes with 12.92%, pollution taxes with 4.5% and resource taxes natural with 0.13%.

While environmental tax revenues have fallen, the use of natural resources and the number of vehicles have increased from 2021 to 2022.

All over the world environmental taxes are considered as an economic instrument to control pollution and manage natural resources and they are designed to influence the behavior of businesses, producers and consumers.

Albania currently has four groups of environmental taxes. In the first group are taxes on energy (including car fuel) include taxes on energy production in the country, as well as energy production that is also used for transportation purposes.

This includes taxes on bio-fuels and other forms of energy from renewable sources, as well as taxes on reserves of energy products. Environmental revenues from energy taxes were ALL 45.7 billion with an annual decrease of 6% in 2022.

Transport taxes are included in the second group. Transportation taxes mainly refer to taxes related to the ownership and use of vehicles.

These taxes also include taxes on other means of transportation (such as planes, ships and trains, etc.) and their services. Revenues from these taxes reached 7.1 billion ALL with a 16% increase in 2022

In the third group are pollution taxes and include emissions measured in the air and discharges in water, management of solid waste and noise, etc. Excluded here is the CO2 emission tax, which is covered by the category of energy taxes. Revenues in 2022 from this group of taxes reached 2.5 billion ALL, an annual decrease of over 8%.

In the fourth group are Natural Resources taxes. Natural resource taxes include taxes on the extraction of minerals and oil from the subsoil and the use of natural resources. The income in this item reached 71 million ALL in 2022 with an increase of over 5% compared to 2023./Monitor