Ilir works as an external collaborator at a television station. He is registered as self-employed and issues monthly invoices for the television station.
This is his main source of income. For several days now, Iliri has been asking the economist to wait for the monthly bill, but this is impossible, as the fiscalization of bills is done through the self-care system, which has been completely out of order for over two weeks and is managed by the government portal E-Albania.
Like Iliri, self-employed individuals use the self-care system for fiscalizing invoices, as this service is offered to them free of charge, unlike other businesses that are forced to use the services of private fiscal software companies.
According to INSTAT, there are about 40,000 self-employed businesses in the country, or about 30% of the total, but there is no data on how many of them are self-employed alone. The activity of the latter has been completely blocked for days due to the malfunctioning of the self-care program.
The self-employed are the ones who are being hindered the most in their activity by the malfunctioning of the self-care system. The latter is the fiscalization portal made available by the Tax Administration that enables the fiscalization process of sales invoices, customs declarations, uploading the fiscalization certificate and changes to it, etc.
But economists report that other entities that use private programs are also encountering difficulties, as some free programs produce limited invoice data. Sonila, an economist, says that a client asks her to produce the blue-headed invoice, which contains the bank's data, after the bank had not accepted the invoice issued by the company that provides the fiscal program service.
Businesses cannot even manage to do customs accounting, but goods can be received and shipped.
Now that the deadline for submitting balance sheets is approaching, economists use this portal to view payment history and to prepare monthly mini-balance sheets, and the blocking of the portal is causing delays in the balance sheet drafting process.
The blocking of the central fiscalization platform, according to fiscal expert Julian Saraçi, is presenting a series of problems that affect the normal functioning of the business, from the malfunctioning of fiscalization, the issuance of a new certificate, non-fiscalization of import invoices or the failure to reconcile control invoices with those of the system.
"-Invoices are not issued from the central platform. The fiscalization process often appears to be completed, but when checked, the system crashes and fiscalization is not completed."
-Invoices cannot be issued from the central platform; some fiscalization companies seem to complete the process, but the system is blocked when checked.
-The new fiscalization certificate is not registered, cannot be downloaded or uploaded, preventing its renewal and activation.
-A new branch cannot be opened or the operator changed, blocking business expansion and staff changes (departures, additions, replacements).
-Import invoices are not fiscalized within 72 hours.
-Invoices cannot be accessed in the system for reconciliations and checks.
-Invoices are not accessed in the system for reconciliations and checks
-Invoicing statuses cannot be verified.
"Reconciliations, or payments related to the invoice, etc., cannot be made."
Sotiraq Dhamo: The malfunctioning of the Self Care system has blocked work for many businesses
For accountant Sotiraq Dhamo, the malfunctioning of the Self Care system has blocked the work of many businesses, including natural persons who can issue fiscalized invoices, non-fiscalization of customs declarations on time for importers, and address changes cannot be made in the electronic certificate if an error has been given.
"Normally, Self Care is the main basis for reconciliations. Even now, during the preparation of the 2025 Annual Financial Plan, some reconciliations need to be performed with Self Care, so it is necessary to have access to the platform.
However, it is currently not possible to perform certain actions: customs declarations cannot be fiscalized on time, changes cannot be made if there are problems with the address or electronic certificate, and information cannot be obtained for cash purchase invoices. Also, individuals using Self Care for billing cannot issue invoices,” he claims.
Mr. Dhamo says that under normal conditions, if the business did not carry out the actions in SelfCare, it would be fined, but for this period and beyond, action should be foreseen by the General Directorate of Taxes (GDT) so that fines are not applied for this situation.
Official silence, or a "we are the best" response
There is still no official explanation from the responsible institutions regarding the situation. The National Agency for the Information Society has not yet responded despite numerous inquiries from Monitor.
Businesses have also complained through official channels, but are not finding a solution, except for evasive responses.
The Director General of Taxation, Ilir Binaj, recently said that "our systems are among the most advanced and we are in constant development, even including Artificial Intelligence. Of course, during our work, there are moments when systems create problems, this happens everywhere and they are addressed by IT structures with maximum responsibility to help businesses in their work. When these problems occur, businesses have the opportunity to collect and report the data that they are unable to report to the fiscalization system at a later time."
The Minister of Economy and Innovation, Delina Ibrahimaj, stated in the Parliament today that the digital services that Albania has have been appreciated by international institutions. "We are eighth in Europe in terms of providing digital services. We are 17th in the world in terms of providing digital services. Deeds are deeds, facts are facts. The systems built have come to the aid of all Albanian citizens living in Albania and abroad, the systems set up for providing business services have reduced time and money", said Ibrahimaj./Monitor.al/
