New territorial reform and its effects on the administration and management of local taxes in the Tirana Municipality

Abstract Local government has an enormous role in a country’s economy. They practice functions and competencies through which they regulate and administer their proper functioning in accordance with law, national and regional politics. In Albania have been a lot of reforms and administrative-territorial divisions, which have failed to make a real decentralization of service delivery to citizens. The new territorial reform approved by law 115/2014 “For the administrative-territorial division of local units in the Republic of Albania” aimed to increase the managerial skills of local government units, to increase capacity for a qualified staff, to increase local revenues and to provide better services to citizens and coverage of necessary services. Reforms needs time and involve a process that cant be carried out without the consultation and consensus of all parties included. In the Albanian context, territorial reform is an advantage because through good organization and management, increase the opportunities to integrate into the European Union. This study aims to analyze the effects brought by the new territorial reform in the administration and management of Local Taxes, and Fees in the Municipality of Tirana, the way how unification of data in a single tax system influenced the fulfillment of this goal and the role of human resources in the process of reform implementation. The methodology of this study is based of data collected from semi-structured interviews with the directors of Human Resources and IT department in Directorate of Local Taxes and Fees in the Municipality of Tirana and also focus groups with employees of two departments