Between Tax justice and Electoral timing

In the midst of its digitization drive, the Albanian government has escalated efforts to combat wage evasion—a subset of the broader informality that continues to distort the country’s economy. While the official rhetoric frames this campaign as a structural correction aligned with fiscal responsibility and EU accession benchmarks, its political timing—on the eve of the 2025 parliamentary elections—casts a longer, more strategic shadow.

Viewed from a political-economy lens, this campaign appears less a sudden policy awakening and more a calculated move to rewrite the narrative of governance ahead of the vote. After years of failing to significantly dent the informal economy, the government now turns to enforcement and public signaling, invoking not just fiscal rules but national pride, European aspirations, and moral clarity. In political terms, it offers a dual benefit: reclaiming the credibility lost through past tax inefficiencies, and appealing to a weary electorate increasingly concerned with fairness and state legitimacy.

Yet this pivot, while theatrically timed, carries deeper contradictions.

Albania’s tax base has long been eroded by informal employment practices, cash-based transactions, and a cultural tolerance for evasion. For many businesses, informality is not defiance—it’s survival. High compliance costs, inconsistent enforcement, and bureaucratic red tape incentivize avoidance. In this context, a campaign narrowly focused on wage evasion risks both oversimplifying the problem and misallocating enforcement energy. The deeper roots of informality—legal insecurity, unfair competition, and corruption—require a broader reform narrative, one not easily reduced to pre-election soundbites.

Moreover, public skepticism remains a persistent obstacle. For years, Albanian citizens have watched successive governments announce reforms only to see limited results, undermined by selective enforcement and political patronage. Without a decisive break from this past—through transparent institutions, equal treatment before the law, and consistent audit mechanisms—today’s tax campaign may be perceived as just another electoral stage act.

Critically, international observers—OECD, IMF, and Transparency International—echo these concerns. They point out that without a clean-up of institutional corruption, no amount of digital infrastructure will restore public trust or enhance compliance. A QR code on an invoice cannot mask the absence of rule of law.

This is where the government’s strategy reveals both its strength and fragility. On one hand, it seeks to redefine the state-citizen contract by visibly confronting informality. On the other, it risks deepening cynicism if enforcement is perceived as politically motivated or inconsistently applied. If small and medium enterprises bear the brunt of inspections while politically connected actors remain untouched, the legitimacy of the reform collapses.

In sum, Albania’s tax campaign straddles a fine line between needed reform and electoral maneuver. The outcome will not be judged merely by how many wages are formalized in 2025, but by whether the reform architecture survives the election cycle, expands its scope, and earns the trust of those who, for now, remain skeptical.