Letters | Sunday, 10 May 2009

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It pays to be dishonest in Malta

It is shameful that whilst who knows how, many have got away with paying thousands of euros in VAT which amount to millions of losses for the VAT department, honest people like my employer are having to fork out huge amounts of money on penalties which are extremely high, many times due to financial difficulties, not because they do not wish to pay our VAT.
In his case, his so called ‘mistake’ was that due to financial difficulties the company encountered almost four years ago, he had no choice but to pay our employees’ wages from the VAT collected for a few months instead of kicking us all out and he has been suffering the consequences ever since. He is am now unable to catch up with the VAT payments as most of the money he pays goes on the hefty penalties which sometimes even end up double what was owed in the first place.
So as always in this country, the honest people are made to pay the consequences whilst the criminals get away for all these years. I was wondering how, even though we always owed the VAT department and never claimed a single refund, we have been investigated not once but four times and obviously always came out clean whilst none of these criminals have ever been investigated once. So much for justice.
From what I could understand, not only have these criminals not paid the VAT due but also got money back which in reality was not theirs and have obviously gained so much interest on it.
I also wonder whether these criminals will be made to pay penalties plus return all the money given to them. I really doubt it as it is impossible to pay such hefty penalties for those large amounts seeing they go back in years. The only way for the VAT department to gain back credibility and show justice to all is to forgive all the past penalties up till today and start a fresh slate for everyone. After all had they collected all those millions instead of ‘paying’ these criminals maybe the percentage of penalties could and would have been reduced drastically.
Unless this is done the concept that ‘In Malta it pays to be dishonest’ will remain forever.

Maria Borg
Naxxar

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