The GRTU has told the government that in the next budget the government had to continue curbing public expenditure and continue reforming the tax system so that people would have more money to spend.

It said it did not agree at all with those who said that the Maltese were among the least taxed in Europe. In the coming budget the government should widen the income tax bands and start the process for a lowering of the highest rate of income tax. That rate, at 35 per cent, no longer made sense in a country where wealth creation depended on the efforts of those who worked and those who created employment.

The GRTU said the government should introduce the system the other small EU countries had, whereby the self-employed were exempted up to a certain level so that small concerns would have the chance to expand. It said that at the MCESD meeting which discussed the budget, it had insisted with the government to stop the barefaced robbery of people about to start receiving a pension. In these cases, the government did not allow those who were retiring to continue working and earning more than the minimum wage; if they did they would lose their pension.

The government was forcing these people to either give up some of their wage, or under-declare, or give up their pension. For many businesses the work these people did was very important. For the self-employed the situation was worse because they either had to lose their pension or wind up their business.

What was worse was that those who gave up their pension to continue working would have also to continue, together with their employer, paying the national insurance contributions and pay income tax at the highest level.