Announcement on undertaking administrative measures against the phenomenon of deregistration and fictive suspension of the activity

The General Directorate of Taxes has observed an increase in the number of applications at the National Business Centre for deregistration or suspension of the activity from taxpayers that have been penalized for various violations by the Tax Administration, that have changed tax liability as well as taxpayers that enter the VAT scheme for the first time, and an immediate registration in the same unit by persons related to the taxpayers that previously owned this activity. Given this fact, the General Directorate of Taxes instructs as follows:

Pursuant to the Law No. 9920, dated 19/05/2008 “On tax procedures in the Republic of Albania”, as amended, as well as Instruction No. 24, dated 02/09/2008, as amended,

In case that upon the on-site verification, it is verified that the taxpayer that is exercising an activity in that premise has family connections with the taxpayer that has applied for closure/suspension of the activity upon change of the tax liability or commission of the administrative offence, the respective Regional Directorate of Taxes, as the case may be, shall communicate to the taxpayer that the following administrative steps will be taken:

• Change of tax liability, imposing him the same tax liabilities that the previous taxpayer/related person had before applying for closure of activity, despite the expected turnover declared by him.
• A request from the Tax Administration to this taxpayer to pay all the tax liabilities, and the application of restrictive measures to collect the outstanding liabilities of the taxpayer/related person, who has exercised the same activity in the same place and that currently has applied for closure/suspension of the activity.
• The observations regarding the penalties pursuantto paragraphs 1/a/ii and 1/b/ii of Article 122 of the Law No. 9920, dated 19/05/2008 “On tax procedures in the Republic of Albania”, as amended, shall be counted by also calculating the observation of the offences committed by the taxpayer/related person, who has exercised the same activity in the same place and that currently has applied for closure/suspension of the activity. Therefore, for those taxpayers that have changed the status (going passive, etc) and that prior to doing so have been observed to be in a violation (first violation), the observed violation upon changing the status, shall be considered the second violation.
• The taxpayers included in the list of taxpayers for registration in VAT on April 1^st, shall be registered for VAT despite having passed to a passive status during January 1^st – March 31^st