Calling for a revision of the income tax bands, the GRTU, Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises, said yesterday they should no longer have a government which continually said that it was liberalising taxation when every year ended with the government raking in more revenue from taxation and widening its public expenditure.
The average income earners, the GRTU said, were feeling that the budget deficit was being cut at their cost and now they were expecting an easing of the heavy burden they have been carrying.
The GRTU said the researches it has made among traders and the self-employed it represented, and among consumers, showed that the earnest wish of this vast sector was to have more money to spend. They wished to end with enough money, after paying their income taxation, to maintain the quality of life that they aspired to.
Taxation was impacting heavily on the widest sector of workers and self-employed which in turn was impacting negatively on commercial activity and family-spending power.
The GRTU said its main proposal was to review income tax bands which should be: Single tax computation: for those earning less than Lm5,000 a year – nil; for those earning between Lm5,000 and Lm8,000 – 15 per cent; for those earning between Lm8,001 and Lm12,000 – 25 per cent; and for those earning more than Lm12,000 – 35 per cent.
Couple tax computation should be: for those earning less than Lm7,000 – nil; for those earning between Lm7,000 and Lm10,000 – 15 per cent; for those earning between Lm10,001 and Lm15,000 – 25 per cent; and for those earning more than Lm15,000 – 35 per cent.
The GRTU said it also expected the two main political parties to bind themselves to eliminate, in the first budget after the election, the 35 per cent band of taxation and establish a system based on the 15 per cent band and another of 25 per cent, with the tax ceiling raised to Lm6,000 a year.
The government, it argued, was today earning enough revenue from the capital transfer tax, VAT and social contributions to make it possible to change the taxation structure so as to make it one that did not heavily burden those who tried the hardest.
The second main proposal it was making was to continue reforming the taxation system applicable to property so that the construction and development industry would not fall into recession. They would at the same time be helping the market of those who bought property with emphyteusis which could be redeemed without obstacles, and the market of property owners to lease to Maltese.
Its proposal, the GRTU said, was aimed to help both the individual who wanted to buy or rent, and the developer who wanted to invest in property, by fiscal measures which would help these markets.