I am writing so that no more harm is done to Malta and its economy. Should host families be taxed, most of them would not host students anymore. In the end if students cannot afford to stay at hotels, which is also not what the parents of these students actually prefer, than we would end up with less students. We are great at killing all kind of tourism and the goose that lays the golden egg.

However, besides the points mentioned above, what really drove me to answer Mr Camilleri and also draw the attention of our authorities is, how can a host family calculate the profits made from students? We are not talking about the income but the net profits. How can a housewife calculate how much she had spent for the students on electricity, water, washing soaps and also food?

Host families also spend money on commodities such as beds and furniture. Would these be considered and depreciation calculated and allowed for tax purposes? What about maintenance? How would the host family calculate expenses on damages caused to the building?

Real carers of students share their food with them. How can they actually know how much each and every breakfast, dinner and packed lunch did actually cost? Should they also engage an accountant to make sure that they are given a real profit and loss account? Or should they do their own accounts, then if they make any mistake the Inland Revenue would fine them with interest when this is found out by the department maybe 10 years after?

Hosting students is not like running a hotel or restaurant where everything you spend on the running of the business is deducted from all the income received and that leaves a profit or loss. One may say that they should be taxed a flat rate of their income. It may make sense but I know host families who kept students and, in their opinion, they lost money not made profits, because they were kindhearted people who treated students like their own children. Some of them even looked after them if they got sick. Cannot we be generous and maybe host a student without the primary aim of making profits?

So in my opinion leave host families host students without too much bureaucracy.

The latter spend a lot of money in the Maltese economy and the former are instrumental in this. The main purpose of having students stay with host families is purposely for the students to be looked after in a family environment. Do not kill a growing industry.

These students could also return to Malta later on in life. There are more ways how to save money from the coffers and also from where tax may be derived.

Anthony Galea

Attard