Undoubtedly, families who host foreign students in Malta are doing an admirable service to the country. They willingly accept foreign students into their homes, provide them with good food, high-quality accommodation, laundry services, converse with them in English, and treat them like one of the family.

They do all this for a paltry fee, which cannot be considered as being adequate compensation for services rendered. They are more motivated by a sense of duty towards their extended adopted family rather than to make any financial gain.

Added to the difficulties involved in performing this task, it should be noted that host families do not obtain any assistance from the government in the form of subsidies or otherwise but thy are compelled to pay a yearly licence fee plus a yearly tourist board contribution which together amount to more than Lm60 a year.

Water and electricity consumption, which tends to be quite high when hosting young students, also comes at an additional 17 per cent payment instead of sabsidised rate. Most of the honest host families also declare the marginal income derived in their Income Tax form and if total household income exceeds the threshold ceiling, they are taxed accordingly.

It is therefore most amazing that our government has expressed its intention of imposing a tax on families who host foreign students. Can our government stoop so low as to tax host families in order to provide financial resources for its cronies in Brussels?

For it is well known to one and all that the high-priced building in Brussels has been bought

with Maltese tax payers’ money, is to be renovated and furnished with tax payers’ money, and will eventually be occupied by government cronies also at our expense.

Having been denied the injustice of taxing satellite dishes because of some EU regulations, is the government now turning on host families by imposing

a tax on their sacrifices, as

they try to make ends meet – a consequence of the ever increasing cost of living and mountain of taxes?

If this is the case, I would not be surprised that our government will be able to do this with the EU’s blessings because, it seems, that “Europeans” seem to take sadistic pleasure in taxing all matters educational (in most Asian countries educational expenses are exempt from taxes).

They came out with the brilliant idea (sic) of taxing school books, school stationery, educational computers (under the pretext of an eco tax) and thus, I would not be surprised if they approve of the current drive to tax host

families.

Even our local Lilliputian Green Party (Alternattiva Demokratika), hungry for a seat in the EU Parliament, have been quoted as stating “The government ought to have introduced a specific tax regime for such services years ago” (!!!!).

Doesn’t our government realise that the ever increasing influx of foreign students, is of considerable aid to the floundering Maltese economy, put up our dwindling tourist arrivals figures, and has a spill over effect on other sectors of the economy.

Foreign students coming to learn English in Malta, besides paying for tuition fees and food and lodgings, go on organised tours, visit museums, and entertainment establishments. Some even prefer staying in a hotel, but most cannot afford paying more money in this respect as it would mean having to forsake entertainment and cultural activities.

In my contacts with several host families, they expressed their intention that as soon as this unjust tax is introduced, they will stop hosting students.

On the other hand, a number of foreign students with whom I had the opportunity to exchange views, informed me that before they enrol in overseas courses they conduct extensive research on the Internet and seek the most favourable prices for tuition fees and lodging.

Attempting to force them to pay higher prices for hotel accommodation to boost hotel occupancy, if this is one of the aims, will certainly not succeed, for they will invariably seek English language courses in other competing countries. Do the government’s consultants who came up with this stupid idea realise that they would in effect be “killing the goose which lays the golden egg”?

Raymond Sammut

MELLIEHA