About six thousand beauty halls in Kosovo, most do not pay taxes

The locals where they exercise the event are packed with customers, almost every day. From morning till evening, work in the country's beauty salons never stops.

In fact, just to get the services faster, Kosovar women take the road to them by six o'clock in the morning. Others wait in line for hours.

And the amounts of money the Kosovars spend on services offered in these halls are staggering.

For just one fritter, they spend up to 700 euros, without counting here the particle, eyelashes and nails. With such services until the end of the day, thousands of euros are poured into the crates of these businesses.

Meanwhile, the large number of customers and the high prices of services have caused beauty salons to turn into one of the most profitable businesses in the country.

Each year about 500 such businesses are added to the country. In the meantime, hair - fixing and makeup artists have clean profits, with no credit to the state.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry has told Gazeta Express that currently there are 5 thousand and 617 beauty salons in the country.

According to MTI statistics, about 500 such businesses have opened during the past year alone.

With the largest number of these businesses top Pristina, Prizren, Ferizaj, Gjilan and Gjakova. In these five cities alone, the number of beauty salons totals about 3,000.

While municipalities with the least such businesses remain the ones inhabited by Serb majority, Novoberda, Hani of Elez, Zubin Potok and Shtrpca, respectively.

But although over 5,000 such businesses are registered, most do not pay taxes at all.

At least that's how they state in the Kosovo Tax Administration.

ATK spokeswoman Valentina Bytyqi-Sefa has said that during the past year, tax obligations have paid only 1,000 and 800 hair salons.

Bytyqi claims that the fees these businesses have made have raised over 730 thousand euros.

“In the course of 2018, the number of taxpayers with hair - haired salons and other beauty treatments that have paid tax obligations is 1.808, while the fee value is 730.247 euros”, says the response of Bytyqi-Sefa.

Meanwhile, that tax evasion is also punished with Article 313 of the Republic of Kosovo Penal Code.

On the basis of the Criminal Code, anyone who deliberately conceals or avoids paying taxes, fees, or other contributions required by law may be sentenced to prison terms of between three and eight years, depending on the amount. /Arjeta Shabani/