and as the September 30 deadline for businesses to submit their financial statements approaches, about 5,000 businesses have still not submitted their balance sheets to the National Business Center
The National Business Center (QKB) told Monitor that as of Thursday afternoon, 19,291 approved financial statements had been submitted to the QKB, while about 80 applications are in line for review. According to the National Business Center, the total number of pending applications is 24,218.
As of July 31, approximately 17,139 financial statements had been approved. The QKB decided to postpone the deadline for submitting financial statements to September 30, following the confusion caused on July 31, when many businesses were unable to file their statements due to the overload. The QKB also announced that there will be no penalties for entities that have obtained an application number.
“Regarding the legal obligation to file financial statements for the year 2018, we inform you that entities which have applied online through the e-albania portal by 31.07.2018 (24:00) and it appears that their application has received an application number (CN…), but due to the high volume of simultaneous applications, it became impossible to properly complete and submit the financial statements, no administrative sanction will be applied based on Article 74, paragraph 3 of Law No. 9723, dated 03.05.2007, “On Business Registration,” QKB announced on July 31.
This was the first year that, under the Accounting Law, the number of statements required to be filed was increased. Alongside the online submission of financial statements, which took on average a few minutes, the completion of a series of other documents has now been added, such as the report on the progress of economic activity, information on assets, revenues, the average number of employees, the business code, etc.
From the very beginning, businesses complained that the system was slow and that uploading the documents online took time. As a result, on the last day, the National Business Center announced that due to the overload, no fines would be imposed on those who have received an application number, provided they submit it by September 30.
But businesses continue to complain that the system is still having problems. “I've been trying for two days to submit the latest balance sheet and I can't, the system isn't working,” says Suela, an economist at an accounting firm in the capital.
However, September 30th remains the final deadline, and businesses cannot hope for another extension.
Source: Magazine “Monitor”
