At times of economic uncertainty, debates about more taxes, less taxes, become more intense... especially regarding consumption and production taxes.

When firms and families are experiencing a crisis in their income flows, the burden of current taxes in their everyday lives can be quite heavy.

VAT comes first in line in this profile. There is still much evasion in so far as it goes, but for a wide range of transactions it has become impossible to evade.

As of now in Malta, those who have been most vociferous to contest it were the small enterprises. One can understand fully how it squashed them, for while their sales declined, they ended up having to pay VAT on products and other output for which they could as yet record no income.

European regulations limit the extent to which VAT rates can be slashed in member countries. However, has the time not come for VAT rates to be adjusted according to the economic situation in which a country finds itself ...? so that when times get rough, VAT rates dip almost automatically...?

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THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The Green Deal as a powerful, co-ordinated effort on a number of fronts has become a fundamental anchor of the EU’s action programmes, mainly targeted to counter global climate change. So practically every initiative undertaken by the Union must somehow reflect the imperatives of the Green Deal.

The European Central Bank has also become part of this thrust. Over the months, it has made adjustments that introduced criteria which reflect “green” aims into the monetary policies it has run. In the beginning I was not concerned about this. I considered that conservative voices which expressed worries were exaggerating.

Today, I am not so sure. Like European national central banks, the ECB is considered to be an institution that must be allowed to operate technically under the direction of people appointed to take independent and technically well grounded decisions, focussed on the control of inflation.

But now if this “technical” and “independent” system is being given powers in the environmental field (and possibly others later), would it not be entering fields of public action that in a democracy are considered to be the domain of political decision-making?

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INVESTMENTS

Some investments are undertaken by mega companies, others by ordinary citizens who wish that the funds they have saved do provide them with income that helps to enhance their living standards.

Many pensioners have discovered that their savings deposited with banks are hardly providing them with much extra money to spend, since interest rates have largely subsided in recent years. So they’re turning to investment in shares. The problem here was and still is whether such investments are safe enough and will not result in extremely painful losses.

In recent years, the EU developed rather stringent measures to safeguard investors. Now, with the Covid 19 crisis, there is a growing need for direct investments to be stepped up in order to nudge firms away from collapse. True, this has become a strong priority but equally, there is a risk that such investments could end up in smoke. The safeguarding of small investors’ interests is a priority that cannot be allowed to slacken.