From e-Albania to Tax Architecture, because digitalization alone is not enough

Albania has made significant strides in digitalizing state-citizen relations. The e-Albania portal has become a mandatory entry point for a range of public services, including tax-related ones.

Forms are no longer submitted in plastic folders.

For several years now, citizens and businesses no longer climb the stairs of the Tax Directorate with declaration sheets in hand.

But beyond the surface of “online services,” one question remains:

Has the way the state manages its revenues really changed?

Instead of building a new architecture of fiscal trust, we have wrapped an old model of control and uncertainty in the modern form of an electronic portal.

The tax administration is wandering between technology and a lack of philosophy

Technology has advanced.

The e-filing portal works, declarations are online, payments are made electronically, and fiscalization has spread to almost every sector. But this technical progress has not been accompanied by an internal restructuring of tax administration.

Thus, the problem is no longer the “lack of digitalization,” but the absence of a new administrative logic.

A strategy exists and has begun to be implemented.

So what else remains unchanged?

The administration remains territorially organized, without functional specialization by business type, sectors, or risk profiles.

Auditing still focuses on formal control, often over honest declarations, while informal businesses flourish unchecked.

Data analysis is rudimentary, used more for retrospective statistics than proactive decision-making.

Institutional communication is one-way. The administration sends messages, deadlines, fines, but rarely listens, advises, or educates.

In this sense, we have a layer of technology placed over an institutional culture that has not changed. One might say we have painted the walls of an old building, but the foundations remain weak.

What do France, Croatia, and Slovenia teach us?

France did not just digitalize processes. It restructured its administration to function in real time with withholding tax, with deep interoperability among tax authorities, banks, property, and employment systems.

Croatia did not settle for just a portal. It created the most sophisticated fiscalization system in the Balkans, where every transaction is reported in real time and becomes part of an analytical platform that helps the administration monitor economic activity intelligently.

Slovenia did not stick to traditional control. It built a functional administration where auditing is no longer an end in itself, but a tool to build trust and reduce systemic risk.

What needs to change in Albania?

Albania no longer needs new applications but a paradigm shift.

It must move from an administration that “controls” to one that builds smart relationships with taxpayers.

This implies:

• Functional restructuring of the tax administration, with units for large businesses, sensitive sectors, and micro-businesses needing support;
• Real interoperability of data among tax authorities, banks, customs, cadastre, and employment institutions;
• Development of fiscal intelligence to follow the economic chain and predict high-risk behaviors;
• A service model as a working philosophy, where the taxpayer is perceived as a partner, not a suspect;
• A unified tax account for each individual and entity, with history, obligations, and personalized interaction.

So, from this description, it seems the Portal itself is not the reform.

If the structure does not change, the content will not change.

The electronic portal may be a faster window, but if the administration behind it does not see, analyze, and act fairly, then it is just a machine for distributing fines and deadlines.

The tax administration is much more than a public apparatus for collecting revenues and obligations from citizens and businesses.

It is the foundation of the fiscal contract between the state and the citizen.

In Albania, this contract still has not been signed with mutual trust.

The need is for fiscal reforms to no longer measure how quickly a citizen completes a form, but how fair and functional the way the state treats them is.