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A blunder or a lie with a tail?

2023-06-23 21:09:32Biznes SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
A blunder or a lie with a tail?
Delina Ibrahimaj and Edi Rama

Pre-election propaganda or serious blunder? The question arises after the verification of Faktoje on a statement by the Minister of Finance Delina Ibrahimaj on the eve of the local elections. The minister who is in charge of the state budget, revealed inflated figures for VAT revenues, a tax that is directly related to consumption and economic activity in the country. According to her, VAT revenues in the first three months of this year increased by 16.7% compared to the same period a year ago. But the truth is that the growth of this voice was only 0.6%.

 "...revenues have increased by 16.7% for value added tax, a figure that we analyze mainly to understand and analyze the performance of the first quarter of the economy, as it is a figure that is related either to economic activity or to consumption. ", stated the Minister of Finance Delina Ibrahimaj in a press conference on May 2, dedicated to the progress of the main indicators of the economy for the first quarter of the year.

Fact Checks show this statement to be untrue. According to official data published by the Ministry of Finance, the income from the Value Added Tax in the period January-March of this year results in 45.9 billion ALL. In the same period of a year ago, the state coffers collected ALL 45.6 billion as VAT revenue.

A blunder or a lie with a tail?
Source: Ministry of Finance

Calculations show that the growth of this item was only 0.6 percent and not 16.7 percent as Ibrahimaj stated. VAT is the tax that tracks the circulation of goods in the economy, as it is charged with their sale price.

The minister who is in charge of the state budget, has shared with the public "inflated" figures for VAT revenues, a tax that is directly related to consumption and the country's economic activity. Coincidence or not, this statement was made just a few days before the May 14 local elections.

Propaganda or blunder?

Faktoje has asked the Ministry of Finance for an explanation for Minister Ibrahimaj's statement, but by the time the article was published we had not received an answer.

However, a blunder or a statement with propaganda purposes, for economic experts, it is unforgivable when such statements are articulated in public by the head of public finance of a country.

"The minister has probably compared it to 2013!", professor Selami Xhepa ironizes as he adds that the minister's statement has propaganda purposes.

"The data show that total revenues in the first quarter of 2023 have increased by 11.9% compared to the same period of 2022, while VAT revenues by 0.6%! What the ministry says is a misleading statistic which has only propaganda purposes...", asserts Xhepa for Faktoje.

VAT in the country count!

The preliminary data of the Ministry of Finance show that in the period January-May, 257.8 billion lek were collected in the state coffers in total from 233.4 billion that were collected in the same period a year ago.

A blunder or a lie with a tail?

Referring to preliminary indicators, the increase in income was led by profit tax and personal income tax. 

While the income from VAT, the main indicator of the progress of consumption in the country, reflects a different situation.

According to the fiscal table, the income from Value Added Tax in the first five months of the year increased by only 886 million ALL or 1.2 percent compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, in real terms, VAT revenues are down compared to a year ago, since the average inflation for the first five months of the year was 5.8 percent on an annual basis.

* VAT is a general tax on the consumption of goods and services, proportional to their price, charged at every stage of the production and distribution process to the price without the tax. VAT is applied as a percentage tax on the price of goods and services and becomes payable after the deduction of VAT that directly burdens the elements of the cost of goods and services./ Faktoje.al

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