From 2013 to 2017, tax evasion and money laundering schemes have lost Albania $2.2 billion, according to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), BIRN’s Besar Likmeta reported.
DC organization GFI found that import under-invoicing and export over-invoicing across the five years made up 21.18% of the country’s total trade value.
GFI’s Communications Coordinator Maureen Heydt told BIRN that the level of misinvoicing in Albanian trade is high even when compared to other developing countries. A high misinvoicing percentage entails the devaluing of taxes collected by Albania and its trade partners, which translates into negative effects on the economy.
Heydt also claimed that prevalent corruption plays a part in this form of tax evasion, yet the magnitude of that part is difficult to determine.
According to GFI, Albanian trade misinvoicing from 2008 to 2017 reaches almost $5.5 billion in value.
In 2013, when he was in opposition, current Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted vocally to a previous GFI report on illicit financial flows, by declaring that it revealed “the chilling truth of a power that stole votes in order to rob Albania.”
