These are days of public controversy about the government’s proposed Individual Investor Programme, with all sorts of arguments being put forward in the public arena.

Comparisons are being made but they tend to be rather one-sided and with an end and finality that are declared at the outset.

But as this issue’s report on the Knight Frank Lifestyle Report shows, it is simply not enough to widen tax bands and offer tax incentives to attract people with a higher level of earnings and worth.

Tax bands and tax incentives are obviously important when it comes to choosing a country of residence but other factors come into play as can be seen not just from this report but from similar ones too.

To adhere strictly to the Knight Frank Report, one such factor is, for instance, quality of living where, rather surprisingly, Malta did not fare so well. One needs to study this and investigate the various shades of meaning in this but we would have thought that membership of the EU, for instance, and the recent very smooth general election would have given us a better placing.

Malta is also ranked rather badly with regard to political risk, again, rather surprisingly given our recent past.

The upshoot of the report is that it is not enough for the price of champagne to be the lowest among the 23 jurisdictions that were examined, nor for the cost of education to be among the lowest to make Malta an attractive venue.

One can, of course, add to the factors that attract and those other factors that repel would-be investors and/or residents.

Maybe the heading quality of life refers to what we normally understand when we gripe about our country – such as the quality of life on our roads, which is surely deteriorating, the quality of life that refers to the environment, the quality of life that refers to the service one gets all around, from shops to government service, the facility to set up shop, open a business, get a licence, etc.

There have been other reports in recent times and they have confirmed the reservations that have been made here: the quality of government service, the ease of opening a business.

On the other hand, we have a number of pluses that have not been reflected in the Knight Frank Report. One such, our incomparable climate has been lost because a number of the competing jurisdictions have, unbelievable though that seems, a better climate with the sun appearing on 365 days instead of our 300 days.

We have a very high quality medical service, an excellent Internet connectivity, a quite free society with relatively low crime, where children can be allowed to be free without the parents worrying to their wits’ end.

We also have a quite good connectivity to the rest of the world, through air routes, whereas places like Tortola, the Cayman Islands, even Zug in Switzerland, are quite difficult to reach.

On the other hand, it is also true that living in Malta places a resident in a small island, with a hothouse atmosphere full of parochial and political undertones even though it does not seem it will affect residents as much as it affects normal citizens.

All in all, one must say, it is sane to conclude that just a tax break or concession is not enough to turn Malta into a country which people of elevated means can think of as a home away from home. There is much, much more to be done before we can be perceived as a welcome place of residence.