“We find it hard to accept that the government continues to finance projects in spite of the continuous warning from the EU Commission that our budget deficit position cannot take the pressure. What this means in practice is that Malta runs the risk of slowing its economic revival after the recession as support programmes to enterprise will have to be curtailed or, even worse, that austerity measures including increased taxation will have to be introduced to ensure the financial dismal gap is closed as soon as possible,” said GRTU in the latest issue of newSTRING.

The GRTU said one of the reasons why the gap widened and why the taxpayer continues to be threatened with new fiscal punishment is tax evasion. The truth is that the majority of business owners today are law abiding and fulfil their tax obligations including payment of income tax, VAT, ECO tax and social contributions while others continue to unscrupulously evade paying their taxes, and it seems without much pressure from the authorities.

All the millions that were not paid have not only created a tremendously unfair, messy business and market structure, as the honest trader has to compete with the illicit trader, but it has also stifled government efforts to put up more funds to support small businesses, which, in spite of the schemes in action are suffocating due to lack of sufficient money.

Worst still is that the untaxed money is used in the black market economy or held undeclared here or overseas. When the government issued the last amnesties, ministers incredibly refused GRTU’s strong recommendation to issue special bonds or other financial instruments so that these funds would NOT be all dumped on the property market, with the consequence that they made the tax evaders even richer while the honest trader, or household owner, suffered further, as prices were pushed up unnaturally by the “invasion” of the released, previously illicit funds, which sent this sector into an inflationary spiral unseen before with the resultant negative impact for many other economic sectors.

“Now the government is at it again,” GRTU said. “It has just financed Air Malta from state funds, taxpayers’ funds, and again put Malta’s national effort to close the deficit gap at great peril. And all know that the €57m pumped in Air Malta are not enough. Don’t all know how well government experts do their projections?

“This was a great occasion for the government to create special bonds and cause those who still keep their millions abroad or hidden in Malta to bring them out into the open and amnestied only if the evaders place their funds in the bonds earmarked for Air Malta or for other projects that may be needed to provide the alternative jobs for those who would be made redundant.”

Why is it, the GRTU asks, that the government always takes the soft option; are they so terrified of those who continuously beat the system? What hold do these people have on the government, the GRTU asks.

“We find it hard to accept that the government continues to finance projects in spite of the continuous warning from the EU Commission that our budget deficit position cannot take the pressure. What this means in practice is that Malta runs the risk of slowing its economic revival after the recession as support programmes to enterprise will have to be curtailed or, even worse, that austerity measures including increased taxation will have to be introduced to ensure the financial dismal gap is closed as soon as possible,” said GRTU in the latest issue of newSTRING.

The GRTU said one of the reasons why the gap widened and why the taxpayer continues to be threatened with new fiscal punishment is tax evasion. The truth is that the majority of business owners today are law abiding and fulfil their tax obligations including payment of income tax, VAT, ECO tax and social contributions while others continue to unscrupulously evade paying their taxes, and it seems without much pressure from the authorities.

All the millions that were not paid have not only created a tremendously unfair, messy business and market structure, as the honest trader has to compete with the illicit trader, but it has also stifled government efforts to put up more funds to support small businesses, which, in spite of the schemes in action are suffocating due to lack of sufficient money.

Worst still is that the untaxed money is used in the black market economy or held undeclared here or overseas. When the government issued the last amnesties, ministers incredibly refused GRTU’s strong recommendation to issue special bonds or other financial instruments so that these funds would NOT be all dumped on the property market, with the consequence that they made the tax evaders even richer while the honest trader, or household owner, suffered further, as prices were pushed up unnaturally by the “invasion” of the released, previously illicit funds, which sent this sector into an inflationary spiral unseen before with the resultant negative impact for many other economic sectors.

“Now the government is at it again,” GRTU said. “It has just financed Air Malta from state funds, taxpayers’ funds, and again put Malta’s national effort to close the deficit gap at great peril. And all know that the €57m pumped in Air Malta are not enough. Don’t all know how well government experts do their projections?

“This was a great occasion for the government to create special bonds and cause those who still keep their millions abroad or hidden in Malta to bring them out into the open and amnestied only if the evaders place their funds in the bonds earmarked for Air Malta or for other projects that may be needed to provide the alternative jobs for those who would be made redundant.”

Why is it, the GRTU asks, that the government always takes the soft option; are they so terrified of those who continuously beat the system? What hold do these people have on the government, the GRTU asks.