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The Economist newspaper for 24 July 2004 carried a very illuminating – and chastening – article on page 55 entitled “Tax Wars – Corporate Tax in the EU”. From the figures quoted, Malta’s Corporate Tax rate, at 35%, is lower than Germany’s at 38.3%, but higher than that in France, which taxes its companies at 34.4%.
By contrast, Corporate Tax rates in Poland and Slovakia are 19%, Hungary 16%, while Estonia does not levy tax on reinvested earnings. The great thinkers in our administration and the unions waffle on about FDI, Malta Enterprise and competitiveness, but surely even they can see the obvious. What serious businessman would not see this sort of taxation differential as a definite disincentive to setting up in Malta?
High taxation alone is bad enough, but what do we have to show for it in return?
The most expensive motor cars, the most undisciplined traffic, traffic police that no longer police traffic, quota-based fund raising traffic wardens, a badly designed. A road network that cannot cope with the volume of traffic that exists, badly repaired and badly drained, unsafe roads that further hinder, rather than allow the free flow of traffic, a hugely inefficient public transport system with new buses that are too large for our (newly narrow) roads, a fraudulent VRT system, Mount Maghtab, the highest pollution in Europe with Government and Government vehicles the worst offenders, untold millions down the Shipyard drains, the Mater Dei Hospital horror story, PBS, the Law Courts not quite as fast as some tortoises, inexplicable Planning Authority decisions, the countryside handed over to bird shooters and trappers, the beaches to squatters, the towns as well as large parts of the countryside taken over by building contractors – the list is endless.
It is a sad reality that under-performing businesses either put their houses in order or go bankrupt, but an under-performing Government raises taxes.
The fabulous new ECO-tax proposal ignores the St Luke’s chimney and the power station, ignores the hundreds of smoking diesel vehicles on our roads, ignores the many restaurants and factories flushing their wastes down the public sewage system, and ignores the fish farms polluting our main asset, the sea, with oil-and-fish excrement slicks visible from the shore miles away. Instead, our generous government decides to impose its new tax on soft drink bottles and the like.
As a final insult to all Maltese, our Government spends nine million Liri on an Embassy in the most expensive area in Brussels, after having for decades turned its face away from the shameful entrance to our Capital City with the ruins of the Opera House, the bus terminus and City Gate souk disaster areas.
Povera Malta! We do not qualify as a Banana Republic - we are a Prickly Pear republic.
Walter Camilleri
Mellieha
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