ATK says it has identified only 3100 workers without labour contracts in Kosovo year round

ATK, the Cavikos d and Kosovo Initiative for Stability, have held discussion with organisations from civil society about the formalisation of employment in the country, as well as implementation of the ATK project “informal employment 2021-23<x>

ATK Director Ilir Murtezaj has told about the draft project, according to him, intensive activities are planned through which intensive activities are planned in identifying people who avoided tax fulfillment.

He said that informal employment is bad for the worker, and in this case, the same one does not enjoy rights based on the Labour Law.

“22 percent of businesses with an MM account, tax accounts for pay tax statements, do not state in the Kosovo Tax Administration, based on 2020 data. Of these declarations, 61 percent have not paid, while 39 percent have not paid. Five percent of the descriptors have declared wages below 150 euros. Data that shows there's room and room for marked improvement. In addition to these damages from the tax payment point of view, the damages are so large that a private sector worker is enjoying his rights in day break, annual and many other things”, he said.

Murtezi added that non-formisation produces legal and tax damage. In this discussion, he has also told about the number of workers who have been identified this year without employment contracts.

Under the emergency fiscal package, 150,000 employees have been formalised workers. And from our last package of economic revivals, it turns out that about 10,000 employees have sought to take advantage of measures 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3... In January-November 2021, we have about 3100 identified workers who were out of business contracts and were actually working”, he added.

And, IMF representative to Kosovo Selim Thaci stressed that informality in Kosovo is the highest in the region.

“assessments concerning informality in Kosovo talk about 35 percent that seem to be among the highest in the region. Countries like Macedonia, Montenegro, are also there somewhere. These are the first data the World Bank has made, the European Commission and other assessments that provide Kosovo, not well. This has caused budgetary and informal revenues to decrease, and tax statements have negatively affected Kosovo at this point, as far as the declaration goes wrong compared to the” region, he said.

According to him, some of the factors that have influenced informality are low trust in institutions and lengthy procedures in selecting business disputes. / KP