When you hear people within the tax administration talking with absolute certainty about illegal orders, selective fines, and targeted attacks on businesses, you realize that part of the state is functioning on the dangerous belief that the government protects you even when you break the law.

In the corridors of the Tax Directorate, the name of Erilinda Lala, the former advisor to the Minister of Finance, is often mentioned, who, according to many voices within the administration, speaks openly and without shame about every action, every pressure and every “order” that is implemented without asking about the law, the procedure or the consequences that are caused to businesses. This is said with a self-confidence that seems to stem from the guarantee of political protection. According to employees, she even says that she sees herself very soon at least at the head of the VIP Directorate, or even higher in the Tax hierarchy.

But where does this great certainty come from?
From professionalism? From results? Or from the conviction that the more you hit, the more you exert pressure, and the more you serve political orders, the more you are rewarded with power?
Because when an official feels strong enough to speak openly about pressure mechanisms and a guaranteed career, then we have crossed the line of individual arrogance. We have entered the territory of administrative capture.

The situation becomes more alarming when every public denunciation, every investigation or every reaction to suspicious actions, instead of bringing reflection, seems to feed even more ambition for career advancement. This is the point where the administration ceases to be a public institution and turns into an instrument of force.

The rule of law cannot be maintained by people who feel untouchable. It cannot be built on the logic of fear, administrative revenge, and careers built on the destruction of business or the blind implementation of orders.

The moment the administration becomes convinced that "the harder you hit, the higher you climb," then the law has fallen. And when the law falls within the institutions that are supposed to protect it, the state itself is endangered.