Tax: crackdown for you, champagne toast for them

“We’ll come down on you like a tonne of bricks,” Finance Minister Clyde Caruana warned the nation in parliament.  If you’re struggling to keep up with the rapid rise in prices and finding it difficult to pay your taxes,  the government will not show you any mercy. 

It’s all fine for Rosianne Cutajar to get caught failing to declare the tens of thousands she made off a failed property sale because she gets exonerated by Caruana’s tax department. It doesn’t matter if Charles Polidano (ic-Caqnu) racks up €30.4 million in unpaid taxes because he’ll be given a deal to just pay €20 million. But if you owe the state a couple of thousand euro, the government is coming after you. 

Labour has doubled the interest rate on overdue tax to 7.2%.  So if you’re scrambling around trying to find the money to pay your dues, you won’t find any mercy.  You won’t get any remissions unless you pay the full outstanding amount. You can no longer negotiate to pay your dues little by little.

Thanks to your tax money, Labour has invested in “modern software” that allows the government to assess everybody.  In itself, a good thing. But how will it be implemented?

The software enables the tax department to screen every taxpayer every month.  And of those who have been assessed, 80% have been found to owe the state taxes, according to Clyde Caruana.

Why is Labour suddenly so desperate to claw back what it is owed by people after spending years closing both its eyes to the wealthiest business moguls?  Why is Labour picking on low earners when it fails to impose the most basic regulations when it comes to developers? Because Labour’s desperate. 

Malta’s financial situation is dire. The national debt has now risen to €11 billion. In one year alone, Labour added over €1 billion to the national debt.  It’s borrowing €2.8 million every single day. 

Labour spent €437 million more than it did just one year before. Revenue increased by only €70 million.  Anybody can see that that level of spending increase is simply unsustainable.

The government consolidated fund registered a deficit of €457.4 million, up from €89 million last year. Yet Minister Clyde Caruana was bragging in parliament that it was his “efficient tax collection” that was helping to narrow the deficit.  The deficit isn’t being narrowed – it’s exploding. 

Labour is spending like there’s no tomorrow. Between January and June of this year, we paid €117 million in interest alone. That’s 17% more interest than was paid in the same period just last year.  

Labour cannot afford to cut spending.  That money goes to buying people and their votes. We’re paying millions for Film Commissioner Johann Grech to feel important.  We’re dishing out hundreds of millions in direct orders. We’re spending millions more on government advertising. 

“A focused government”, reads one big billboard paid out of your taxes.  Robert Abela’s OPM spent €428,000 just on promoting the 2024 budget. 

The government keeps spending obscene amounts of money on trying to convince the electorate how great it is – while running eye-watering deficits. 

Our debt interest payments could build us a brand new hospital in just one year. But to cut down on the unnecessary spending means upsetting so many who’ve enriched themselves through Labour’s extravagance with our money.

How can a socialist government ever justify the luxury yacht travel, the lavish dinners, the fine wines and champagne, the expensive gifts that Johann Grech dishes out to his friends?  Why are we spending millions on Labour loyalists and their families to have a fun day out? 

When our deficit has grown so exponentially, our government shouldn’t be paying out money to fireworks enthusiasts or band clubs.  It shouldn’t be paying total incompetents thousands of euro to sit on government boards. 

It shouldn’t be giving the Prime Minister’s young assistant, Ryan Pace, eleven separate government jobs.  It’s clear he can’t possibly be doing eleven jobs well if at all. 

He cannot be Chairman of the Malta Gaming Authority, Director at ARMS Limited, Director of Gozo Heliport Ltd, Director at Malta Government Investments Ltd, Director at Malta Investment Management Company Limited, Director at the Malta Film Commission, Secretary at the Engineering Resources Ltd, Secretary of Mediterranean Offshore Bunkering Company Ltd, Legal adviser, Malta Tourism Authority and Legal Adviser at Aġenzija Support.

That’s who Labour should come down on like a “tonne of bricks”.  But it won’t.

Clyde Caruana bragged that he’s catching so many people who are evading tax that it’s not possible to “house them all in prison”. Instead, he mocked, they will pay what they owe, plus the severe penalties that he’s imposed. Somebody caught evading €1,000 in tax would not only have to pay that amount but will also have to pay an additional €2500 in penalties and fines.  

Caruana actually told parliament that the legacy he wants to be remembered for is “efficient tax collection”.  What he’ll certainly be remembered for is how he broke the bank with his multi-billion-euro debt burden.